Lose MMR at 5-1 and 1300 players in 1900 lobby. Really?

PVP Arenas
1

Look: these forums are generally pretty negative and I admittedly thought the MMR issue at the beginning of the season was overblown. For that, I apologize. My view swung very clearly in the opposite direction months ago but two recent incidents occurred that I feel are unacceptable.

My brother is a healer. He mentioned that MMR was being squelched for healers so they didn’t move up too fast out of brackets and SS would pop more often. This concept in itself is ridiculous: people who are playing a class that’s integral to queues popping are getting punished.

He then showed me a screenshot of him going 5-1 and LOSING MMR.

This is absolutely unacceptable. He has no incentive to SS now because he’s under the impression if he doesn’t go 6-0 now he’s going to lose MMR so what’s the point, and I don’t blame him.

The second incident happened this morning. I was in a lobby with an SPriest who got instantly deleted. When he joined our team I inspected his gear and he was in full greens. I instantly, embarrassingly, went into full-sweat mode since I’ve never been above 1800 before and this was srs bzns (I’m a moron).

I sincerely appreciate the healer pointing out that I was behaving inappropriately, before he mentioned the SPriest was 1300.

Wait, what? Wtf is a 1300 player doing in an 1800 lobby?

I messaged him afterwards to apologize and he gratefully forgave me so I asked if he could use some help.

He was a returning player, new to TWW, hadn’t completed the campaign and didn’t know about crafted gear. He had been 300 2-hours prior to joining our 1800 lobby. He wasn’t sure how to get BT’s and thought the only way to get CNQ was through Rated. This has echoes of a LOT of the complaints I had when I first started.

To me, these two incidents are absolutely unacceptable. Punishing people for playing their chosen class, a class of which is absolutely necessary for the matches to even happen, and throwing new players into lobbies where they’re probably not going to have a good time is insane. There’s now one less healer in rotation and I sincerely hope my actions in the match weren’t enough to turn off a returning player, a.k.a. one more PvPer.

I don’t think this is going to do anything as there have been a myriad of posts, videos, and whatever else pointing out these problems and more from people who can get infinitely more eyes than I can, but it’s getting comedic at this point how little Blizzard seems to care about PvP.

Maybe it would make them more money and more people would play it if they… focused on it more? Novel concept I guess?

TL;DR: Blizzard, come on. Seriously?

1 Like
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Show the screenshot of him going 1-5 or give his seramate.

I went 4-2 and lost 195 mmr but that was a placement game with a 1500 mmr healer on enemy team

People raged about not enough inflation, Blizzard added it so now everyone on their first que starts at 1950 mmr, or 150 points above the elite gear cutoff.

He has a gross misunderstanding of how mmr systems work if he thinks this.

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3

Okay, so do you think the current state of PvP is in a good place?

This happened over a week ago so he’s not popping up on Seramate. Not sure if there’s another way to show it, and these games were certainly not his placement games either. This is kind of a weird argument to make.

I don’t think that’s what people were asking for when they wanted inflation. People wanted stronger MMR gains with wins, not having an insane median for brackets.

I’m also not sure what you would think would happen if someone goes 5-1 and loses MMR. We’re both new-er to Ranked yes, and sure, maybe neither of us understands how the MMR system works - but there’s also nothing else out there that tells us or shows us otherwise.

4

Don’t worry buddy you’ll get there

5

This is absolutely insane to me.

My brother was telling me that PvP participation is at ~5% when at the end of DF it was closer to ~15%. Do you know if that’s accurate?

Blizzard has to realize that there’s an entire industry built on PvP in this game and it’s ludicrous they won’t help it.

Edit: Not sure why you edited your post?

6

I mean it has its issues but shuff mmr isn’t really one of them

Shouldn’t be bleeding mmr unless trending heavily downwards

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7

When participation is down quite high like this, all it is is a bunch of tryhards that are nearly on the same level as each other. The difference between 1800 and 2200 is not big actually. The only time things change is when the top 100 people are going against each other. Those are the ones that are beyond the tryhard level, and they are exploitable too. All you have to do is trigger them IRL or in game and when they face you they lose more than they win

8

You’re not really wrong, the entire MMR system is confusing and disheartening, but the only way out is to just keep queuing. It will even out in the end, I just wouldn’t get caught up in the minutea of your CR vs MMR. Over a large sample of games, most people will end up at the rating they deserve, but zoomed in on a per lobby basis, outliers like this can definitely suck. Once you’re CR/MMR even out at around 1.9-2k, it starts making more sense and doesn’t feel as random

Healers do kind of get shafted relative to DPS in solo shuffle, but that’s just because there’s a much smaller pool of players that you’re being ranked against

9

I mean there’s not much to think about as it operates in the background. Knowing how it works doesn’t change how the overwhelming majority are gonna want to play.

2 Likes
10

Again, I’m not sure how we’re supposed to know this kind of stuff. Your statements only make the MMR system more confusing and make less sense.

I’d like to be able to go to my brother and tell him what he experienced was an anomaly but we basically have your word to go on.

11

It doesn’t matter.

Queue, play, or don’t.

12

Extremely helpful, thanks a ton.

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Yup, that’s why I said the only way out is through and to just keep queuing. It definitely evens out in the end

14

I could explain how it works but, again, that wouldn’t really affect how one goes about playing. It’s pretty intuitive in that winning is good and losing is bad.

Lose a ton the system assumes you’re higher than you should be, because you are, and inversely if you win a ton mmr goes up above cr and you shed that mmr before cr on losses, etc.

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15

My brother has taken to queuing RBG’s instead, so there’s that I guess.

16

MMR is simpler than people make it. I think people don’t realize when you 3-3 from 0 CR to starting MMR you gain points because your CR is catching up to your MMR. Once you get there, 3-3 isn’t going to net you big gains, or any sometimes. As for going 5-1 and getting no points… the only way that happens is if you go on a big losing streak and are playing in an MMR lower than your CR. No other way that happens.

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17

What I’m trying to say though, is that if we understood how it worked better or had some idea of what was going on, things like what appears to be an anomaly with him losing MMR at 5-1 wouldn’t be so impactful.

You’re extremely highly decorated in this area but try to put yourself in our shoes. We shouldn’t have to have someone on the forums try to explain how it works. It should be a lot more straight forward.

18

I think healers are very high mmr can sometimes get a lower healer and get almost nothing but yeah, it’s pretty fringe/niche to get few or no gains.

In later seasons with mmr rollover I think a healer at like 2600 glassing a 0 cr 2600 mmr healer might also get barely anything.

The only time I’ve seen or heard of this is in placements where MMR shoots all over the place and healers are high mmr during weird hours. It’s not really standard, esp for dps.

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19

It actually happens fairly frequently if you’re playing in the rival-duelist range

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I believe this was around ~1600 at the time.