290 Rounds of RSS - Looking at the data & MMR

PVP Arenas
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I finally got Legend yesterday and wanted to look over what it took. If anyone wants to take a peek, I’m 1291/2535 in total. In short… a lot of rounds played. Over all those games though, it really felt like MMR was working against me, so I decided to look at what happened. I have 290 matches total from 1700 range.

So what does it look like?

Of the 290 matches played, I was higher than the groups average MMR 201 times. 3 of those matches I was the same as the average. Honestly makes me a bit frustrated that more than 2/3 of the time I was higher than the average. This means I’m getting less points per win AND it means I have a higher chance of losing more points if I lose. While most of us know the game heavily favors consecutive wins, this makes it looks like the game is almost working against you.

If you have a few bad lobbies, the game will start placing you in groups that are substantially lower than your MMR/CR. The largest gap I had was 247 points difference against me. Conversely, the largest gap in my favor was 159 points. Even going on steady win streaks kept my MMR higher than the average MMR.

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So the blue line is me and the orange is the average of all the players in the match. The item to take note of is how often the orange line is below the blue line AND the size of the gap. As I stated above, If you start losing, the game harshly penalizes you. Problem is… Even going on win streaks doesn’t remedy the situation. Closer to the end, there were a bunch of times I was floating around 2400 and I continued to get lobbies that were 50-100 points or more lower than my MMR. Every loss compounds super quickly…

Just to round this out a bit more, I looked at the win/loss ratios for all the SV hunters in the top 100 to see how I compared. The average was roughly 56% while I sat just under 51%. But how does that stack up against a trend? Well, the line in the graph is the trend line. Now obviously if I continued to play that would level out some, but I’m also curious to see if I can keep pushing higher.

TLDR: The game consistently placed me in groups with lower MMR then my own. This isn’t a complaint, but I would like to understand how MMR works better and maybe there is something I should have changed early on. Did all the games I played the first couple or weeks hurt me overall? Why even after so many wins is the team MMR below mine? Why is the game so heavily weighted in favor of losses?

It feels like MMR needs some work. The losses compound while the gains can be hard fought. Anyone else felt the same?

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Part of the reason for this is because your MMR, which determines your points loss/gain per loss/win as well as the number being weighed against others to determine your mmr gain/losses is from your previous game.

In arena this is less of an issue since your mmr/rating stay fairly close since you’re only dealing with single losses.

In solo shuffle it’s possible to eat 6 losses worth of mmr drops in a single game, causing the need to repair your MMR before you can go back to climbing in many instances. This leads to the instances of going 5-1 or 6-0 and gaining no points, or next to no points, which generally doesn’t happen in normal arena’s one match style.

This same situation also makes it extremely easy to tank, as multiple losing streaks can cause such a drop in MMR you are heavily penalized for even 3-3 lobbies until you manage to repair it.

On the other hand it makes it extremely easy to climb off of lucky lobbies since you can gain such an MMR boost that it becomes hard for you to lose points on bad lobbies.

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What’s legend

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I healed something like 240 matches this week and won about 60%. Im down 140 rating.

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Have you ever done a graph like this in regards to an 3’s arena season so you could compare? I mean one SS game is 6 matches. Have you compared a session of 3’s doing 6 matches, winning 4, losing 2 at the same CR compared to 1 six game SS matchup and what the total difference would be? Plus everyone knows rated play, depending on how many are queue’n at the time plus wether it’s an inflated it deflated season can cause some real mismatch between the 2 teams CR/MMR’s as well

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Well, if that’s the case, shouldn’t the average MMR of everyone be closer to 50/50 with my own? Given I’m winning on average more then I’m losing, The majority of matches I’m still higher then the average. Were it off slightly I would understand, but given that 2 out of every 3 matches I’m higher… something feels off.

That’s what I’m most curious about. This means I’m consistently getting less of my positive win streaks. Then, as soon as I take that loss, It’s again forcing me down quickly.

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It may just be harder for the game to make even lobbies from random single players than teams who tend to sit at exactly the same mmr, maybe they could tighten the range but I imagine that would cause very serious que issues in a system like this.

You’re used to your teamates having the same exact mmr as you, even when they start differently in an actual 3s session everyones mmr generally gets pushed to the same point.

Think of all the 2s or even 3s instances where your team is put against an enemy team that is either lower or higher mmr than you, It happened there too just much rarer. It’s the same thing happening except you’re having to play with that other team now too.

Not saying they can’t and shouldn’t make every improvement to their system that they can but its’ prob not going to get much better than it currently is.

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Came here for this comment… Feels so good.

On this char, I’ve gone 44-91 and I’m down from 1998 to 1778. Had prot pally ‘heal’ afk rounds and lose 0. Mind boggling.

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I haven’t, but If someone running reflex wants to send me their CSV file, I could make one up quick.

The wins and loss in RSS I think compound too quickly in both directions. A bad lobby or two in a row shouldn’t be reason for you to drop 200-300+ MMR. While the gains are great if you keep winning, the losses are brutal. Given that I have had multiple 400+ CR swings, something is off. It might mean we gain less points per win, but maybe that means the losses won’t stack so quickly.

In the end, it means the average player likely needs to play… a LOT to get an accurate idea of where they sit. The problem here is a player might easily be of 1800-2k ability, but they are constantly struggling in the 1600 range despite a positive win/loss. Like if you’re a caster in the lower brackets and every match has an arms and fury in it, you’re going to struggle to push out. Unfortunately, It’s not completely their fault. The lack of diversity in the queues is forcing some specs out and actually favoring some specs more heavily then others. I could be wrong on this, but I could see the middle of the bell curve in rating being heavily saturated with a few specs.

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Yea, I’m curious about it. I understand the importance of MMR, but I think it’s value needs to be dramatically diminished the higher you move up. Instead, we see the opposite. The higher I got, the greater the degree of difference was when I lost. The impact of those losses higher up… hurts. Past 2k to 2100, I start having 100+ differences in the MMR. Maybe it’s just lack of players, but still sucks that I’m consistently the higher one in the group.

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I feel they made the algorithm to try and get you quicker lobbies… And as we know vast majority of people who play are not even 2k rated ever. So the pool to pick players from is much bigger with lower rating. Hence many of us are constantly in lobbies with people much lower rated. It feels bad but idk what they can do other than guarantee you a lobby with everyone exact same mmr but possibly waiting much longer for said lobby lol. Its a mess

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Dang. 2600 matches but 2300 of them to get to 1700? Am I reading that right?

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I tanked from 1977 to 1709 this past weekend. It feels like when you get put in a hole, it’s not a 5ft hole you have to climb out of, but a 50ft one.

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This is resounding, objective, and obvious proof that the whole MMR system is bugged and it’s no wonder some of us are stuck in hell while the game screws us on losses.

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I’m sure that’s part of it. It might be that players who are on a positive trajectory will always be placed with players at a lower MMR. It may be that after I put in more games at 2300-2400 that it starts to average out. Definitely would be tough to have a lobby where everyone is the same, but given how important your gains are compared to the MMR of the other players, it really sucks to always be having to grind for each gain.

Rounds. I had about 100 rounds played prior. When I started recording, I had already been 2k+.

Yep. At least 3-4 times I lost more than 300-400+ rating. This past week I went from 2500+ almost to 1900 range. Before feral was nerfed, I had 3 matches with a feral and they killed my pet nearly every round. I was completely helpless. Those losses catapulted me down. =/

Yea, I was honestly pretty surprised. Here is what really stands out when you look at things from the top down.

Pardon the image size…

At one point, my MMR is 247 points higher than the groups average… So that means LITERALLY everyone I’m playing against is quite a bit lower than me AND I have everything to lose and almost nothing to gain. Despite this, my CR is also still high. Even worse, this happens for a few games in a row.

So the question is… is the game penalizing me for playing more? Basically the game wants to force you in one direction or the other. RSS MMR makes it difficult to coast.

But then look what happens… The game pushes me down dramatically and I start facing players well outside of my skill bracket. I start going 5-1 or 6-0 and then the teams average is well above my MMR. That says I’m being placed too high (almost). It’s at that point I slowly grind back up.

Either way, as I said earlier, It really feels like it’s hard to maintain a specific rating. A good players could easily be bouncing around 200-400+ or more rating. So a 1200 players might be good enough for 1600 and that 2k player… well, if they keep playing they might be able to push much higher as well. I’ll know more as I continue to play.

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Thank you for this post. Really brings to light a lot of the issues in the current system. Kinda motivated me to play more, I’m about 70 rounds of SS and recently took a 250CR dip after a few bound rounds. It was so damn frustrating that I flat out quit the bracket.

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Refreshing seeing someone actually delve into data and investigate a trend in the game rather than spouting fallacy ridden nonesense.

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Yea, the big drops are super disheartening. The first time I hit 2k-2100 range, I dropped 400+ rating. The losses just build off each other so quickly. I feel like some specs are more immune to this. Like I do really well into balanced matches. Two ranged and two melee. I do awful into triple caster on large matches… or triple melee on a small map. If you string a few bad lobbies and maps together… well, you get the idea.

Appreciated. Yea, I was pretty curious what I’d see. I wish I had been recording since the start. It’s unfortunate that this information isn’t more easily accessible. Back in wrath, you’re entire arena history was in your armory. I miss those days. The old armory gave players a lot more tools to improve.

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This really helps me stay motivated. I have to remind myself that RSS is chaotic and bumps and losses of 3-400 rating may be standard. I just in general don’t enjoy ret currently. But I’m only aiming for duelist. I just need a good week.

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Definitely worth being honest with yourself with why you lost and making sure you’re taking every opportunity to make a change. I made some changes to my playstyle overall those matches, but more often than not, the losses felt outside of my control.

Like something to consider is the maps in the queue for a certain week. Enigma Crucible is awful. The big maps in generals make bad lobbies even worse. I went up against an ele and destro lock and I couldn’t connect with either for very long. They just destroyed me. Could I change things up some? Sure… but I know regardless of what I change that’s a bad map.

Same goes for feral and s.priest. Both were really tough on SV. Both got nerfed. After feral was nerfed I noticed immediate gains. Not that I couldn’t have improved against feral, but realistically I needed games… WITHOUT ferals in them.

I put in wayyyy more games then a lot of players likely even have time for, but I did do a lot of experimenting along the way and it helped. That said, unfortunately, the big swings in MMR/CR were still the biggest issue.