I am sure there have been lots of posts about the wall/‘black hole’ issue in blitz and they are right to blame the MMR cuz it is a bad proxy to tell the bad from the good.
Let me define what baddies mean in blitz by few examples.
- In Gilneas a hunter that claimed to sit a base lost it because he didnt use bge addon to check stealthy and see who is missing on enemy team and he didnt call inc. Then he said I wasn’t the issue because I got kills and dps blahblah.
- In a flag map, a dps is fighting in the mid instead of efc.
- In deepwind or other node maps, a player is wastinig time on a fully locked base that was turned by emeny.
I am sure I can speak for everyone that they don’t belong to rated blitz. People don’t have to be grand marshal or R1 glad and there is no shame in losing to those cuz everyone has to learn. The bottom line here is that everyone is here to win by doing mechanics that give the victory points. Yet MMR is a fiasco because it doesn’t gate these baddies, who are the same people that cause bg loss in random bgs. In fact there is a fundemental issue:
The 1500-1600 bracket is a ‘absorbing state’ in statisics terms. For example people can win two games to win 15 ratings and lose one game to lose 15 ratings. It is a RANDOM WALK with mean 0. Why? Because the bracket of 1600 is too crowded and cannot distinguish baddies from good people who are trying to win. In economics it is called “Bad money drives out good”. Blizzard you have to know that it is MUCH EASIER for a baddie to ruin a game than for a R1 glad/Grand Marshal to save a game.
You can ask your statistician (if you have hired anyone) to simulate 1 million games with parameters that mimic these baddies and your MMR system. I am sure at the end of day the MAJORITY of the mass of the distribution will be stuck at 1500 - 1600 bracket. Only a small portion can flee. Because before 1500 even baddies can eventually craw to this rating cuz there is not much penalty before 1500. Baddies are very likely to be matched to people with good attitude/exp and ruin their games. Again this becomes a stable system. You can go up in ratings but eventually you go down again.
To solve this problem, I think you need to consider 2 things. First you really need to do something about the notorious MMR system in bg. Actually one thing you did good was the score point calculation. For example in the temple orb map, besides dps/hps, there is also a victory point. This is a good start. You can create a better proxy to measure a player. Say 30% of the MMR, 30% of the dps/hps percentiles compared to the same people with the same roles that participated in the same match, and 30% of victory points (VP). The VP could be orb grabbing/killing points in orb map, base defense/cap points in node games or efc killing/fc peeling points for flag maps. It is a more comprehensive way and it ill quickly rule out the people that had no damage/healand didnt do mechanics. It is way better than MMR along. Natual convergence by MMR is TOO SLOW.
Second thing is increasing the ‘searching heat’, which is a statistic term to accelerate the converging speed. You need to allow 1600 people to be matched to 1800 and 1800 to 2000 occasionally and if they win they can jump out. It is a better way to converge people to ratings they belong to. It doenst mean to ruin higher rated people’s bg by forcing them to be matched to lower rated players. You can reduce the penalty if a 2000 player loses in a 1600 game. Just do something to give good players a chance to jump out.
To sum it up, you need to forget about your old template for MMR that you think worked in 2s, 3s and rbg. It may work for solo shuffle but it definitely need MODIFICATIONS. A better proxy and more aggresive converge is needed. Just do a summary of people’s past arena/rbg exp distribution among the 1600 bracket people, believe you will see a huge polarization. This bracket has all kinds of people. You will find duelist even glads but you will also see people with no bg exp. Again this bracket is a consequence of the MMR cuz it is not an elixir. The current situation of blitz has prooved that this black whole is a natural product or your MMR system.
Blitz is a good and I’m sure everyone who doesnt have time for fixed guild events for rbg would still want to play it, but only when you fix this black whole issue.
