Overwatch

Soldato
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To download the new match viewer go to the region select on battlenet overwatch and select match viewer it's a 16gb down and I think matches start tomorrow evening.
 
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Soldato
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I've started playing recently, but am I right in thinking comp matchmaking has the same utterly stupid 'try to enforce 50% winrate' matchmaking that league of legends did? If so I feel you, it is so stupid and frustrating. At least in League carrying was more of an option which is how the really good players could keep sweeping through the lower tiers with ease (I was able to get out of bronze consistently by carrying)

Forgot about these rants lol... erm I'm not sure if it's completely confirmed but I certainly have very very close to 50% in every single season (some of which I played 100s of games and others a much smaller number)... Now that could just be because once you're "at your rank" then perhaps you might expect to get close to a 50% win rate, but it just feels way too rigid... the second you're a little bit "too high" you get put into a game with absolutely no chance of winning, and visca versa when you drop a little bit... It's just frustrating because sometimes the games end up being well-matched and are great fun so the system obviously has the ability to get it right, it's a shame it can't do it every game... Maybe without having these wild swings the system would fall apart (i.e. nobody would ever move up/down at all) but it just feels like there's no middle ground at all (e.g. you don't win a game or two then find the next game is slightly tougher, and then the next slightly tougher again... you go straight from wiping half their team whilst balancing and eating a sandwich between keypresses, to playing as hard as you possibly can but barely being able to leave spawn)
 
Soldato
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But this is a live game, with people doing whatever they like, with loads of other factors. Surely it would be impossible to stagger your experience like that?

I think I'm a reasonable Soldier at my rank, but sometimes the comp I'm playing against just isn't going to work, maybe I'm asked to Phara which I'm not as good at. Our team skill is generally going to be a bit lower then. I don't see how Blizzard are expected to control/foresee that?

Look at sports. Two teams could be similarly skilled, but one day one will dominate the other. Another time, it could go the other way...
 
Soldato
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But this is a live game, with people doing whatever they like, with loads of other factors. Surely it would be impossible to stagger your experience like that?

I think I'm a reasonable Soldier at my rank, but sometimes the comp I'm playing against just isn't going to work, maybe I'm asked to Phara which I'm not as good at. Our team skill is generally going to be a bit lower then. I don't see how Blizzard are expected to control/foresee that?

Look at sports. Two teams could be similarly skilled, but one day one will dominate the other. Another time, it could go the other way...

You're not wrong, Blizz can't literally control the outcome of the games to that degree, but I think the problem is that their system still tries to... If the matchmaker put together teams that it felt would be genuinely balanced every time then the natural variability in those other factors that you mention would come into play... only I think that would feel more natural, you would still get the occasional game that went very one-sided but they would be more exceptional than they are right now... Playing consistently better would allow you to climb, playing consistently but without improving would see you getting good close (fun) games... As it stands their system is just another (much stronger) factor thrown into the mix that overshadows the others...
 
Associate
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the matchmaking should attempt to match teams of even skill every game regardless of winrates, and I'm virtually certain both LOL and OW matchmaking do take into account winrates, which is patently wrong and stupid. Just because each game you have a roughly 50% chance of winning doesn't mean everyone should have a close to 50% winrate, it should be normally distributed. I suspect that they are still normally distributed but with a much tighter distribution (I can't remember the maths term for this) than it should be. It is kinda like flipping a coin as I think was noted earlier - each game should be an independent coin flip, but instead it is looking at the history of the coin flips and going 'right you've flipped 50 tails and 30 head, time for it to come up heads...'

Obviously if you are a pro in bronze it can match you with wood elo teammates vs gold/silver enemies and you'll still smash them 90% of the time
 

Stu

Stu

Soldato
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A big factor is that the match maker does not consider which hero, or even hero type, that you play. So you could get six vs six that are evenly matched in terms of SR and general skill, but one team might be six support mains, and the other team 2 supports, 2 tanks and 2 DPS mains... this is obviously not a good match.

LFG is meant to fix this, but that often creates other issues, and I don't know many people that use it a lot.
 
Associate
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My point is, with all those factors, SRs are equal, I don't think it can make you lose... It has as much chance io predicting the outcome as... Erm ... Something unlikely.

no, but it can stack the deck, which is why someone well below their actual level can carry themselves up, but someone who is just say one tier above in skill where they are currently can't make a big enough impact themselves to unstack the deck. If it could MAKE you lose or win and was trying to force 50% winrate then everyone would have a perfect 50% winrate or be one game out from that and it would be really obvious that it is happening. If it stacks the deck over 100 games the effect would be far more subtle to detect but still there...
 
Soldato
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I disagree. How does it stack the deck? You're suggesting it has an SR, but it does some other kind of monitoring to know when someone is actually better than their SR?

There's tons of other stats they can pull in, and SR is probably not that important - you can fairly easily make a team of any average SR you like given the huge player pool...

So just off the top of my head they could use the stats to do with elims per 10 minutes, win rate, pick players whose stats suggest they do well on the map being chosen... putting players together whose stats seem to suggest they form a balanced comp (e.g. 2-2-2)... or conversely doing the exact opposite of all of these for your team (unbalanced comp, players whose recent stats suggest they are playing badly or are tilted, tend to do badly on the map that is being selected)... they could group together some of the same players that just performed well together (or split them up)...
 
Soldato
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I've started playing recently, but am I right in thinking comp matchmaking has the same utterly stupid 'try to enforce 50% winrate' matchmaking that league of legends did? If so I feel you, it is so stupid and frustrating. At least in League carrying was more of an option which is how the really good players could keep sweeping through the lower tiers with ease (I was able to get out of bronze consistently by carrying)

You can carry just as easily in this game, it just requires more skill to do so than League since it's an fps. To me it's harder to get aim good enough to carry yourself in OW than getting say, diamond in League. Some people just never aquire that level of aim, it takes a lot of focus and training. But once you have it, OW is absolutely carryable.
 
Soldato
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So just off the top of my head they could use the stats to do with elims per 10 minutes, win rate, pick players whose stats suggest they do well on the map being chosen... putting players together whose stats seem to suggest they form a balanced comp (e.g. 2-2-2)... or conversely doing the exact opposite of all of these for your team (unbalanced comp, players whose recent stats suggest they are playing badly or are tilted, tend to do badly on the map that is being selected)... they could group together some of the same players that just performed well together (or split them up)...

Yeah, I see what you mean, but I still think there are too many variables out of their control for them to be able to reliably do that. For example, all those things you mention will be quite different for me as Soldier as they are for Phara. They will all change quite drastically depending on (if I'm Solider) the opposition run double shields or not. It's a massively complex formula that I just think there are too many variables for Blizzard to be able to control like you say they are.
 
Soldato
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I don't think it's a bad thing (in this game or League) for the MM system to want to keep you at 50% winrate. With this it requires an exceptional performance to win (good thing) or for you to be consistently better than your current opponents in order to win, also a good thing as it rewards actual improvement. I think if you're opposed to this, you might just not be willing to accept the slow grind of improvement and prefer instant gratification.

I've said this in League, 5 years ago and it applies to OW as well. There's no elo hell. If you're a diamond player you will reach diamond. If you're stuck in plat and want to improve you need to criticize your own performance before you blame the system or your team.
 
Soldato
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looking at my stats ive pretty much had a 50% win rate every season, with good seasons i might have 20 more wins, im not a good player but have been playing long enough to be able to usually spot if my team is going to win the match by selection in the first fight and i think the MM system some how predicts this, it must look at previous characters played.
 
Soldato
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Yeah, I see what you mean, but I still think there are too many variables out of their control for them to be able to reliably do that. For example, all those things you mention will be quite different for me as Soldier as they are for Phara. They will all change quite drastically depending on (if I'm Solider) the opposition run double shields or not. It's a massively complex formula that I just think there are too many variables for Blizzard to be able to control like you say they are.

Still seems like they could work a lot of that out (they have your stats as each hero that you play as, and a measure of how commonly you play each hero, they also know how often you play each hero recently, they know how often you tend to pick each hero on the map they have selected)... You're right though all of this is pure conjecture and we don't know for sure

I don't think it's a bad thing (in this game or League) for the MM system to want to keep you at 50% winrate. With this it requires an exceptional performance to win (good thing) or for you to be consistently better than your current opponents in order to win, also a good thing as it rewards actual improvement. I think if you're opposed to this, you might just not be willing to accept the slow grind of improvement and prefer instant gratification.

I've said this in League, 5 years ago and it applies to OW as well. There's no elo hell. If you're a diamond player you will reach diamond. If you're stuck in plat and want to improve you need to criticize your own performance before you blame the system or your team.

But forcing you towards a 50% winrate is counter to what you describe when so much of whether you win or lose is not based on your individual performance... I think if their system just randomly assigned you against players of a similar SR instead of what it does now then ending up with a 50% winrate organically would show that you're at or close to your "true" rank, and you'd probably find most games are pretty close and fun - and to do better it would be just like you say; need to be consistently good, slow progress to climb... At the moment you get thrown in these games that feel like you could just **** about the whole match on a hero you never play and win easily or play the best game of your life and lose horribly, with little-to-no middleground between these
 
Soldato
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I think if their system just randomly assigned you against players of a similar SR instead of what it does now then ending up with a 50% winrate organically would show that you're at or close to your "true" rank, and you'd probably find most games are pretty close and fun - and to do better it would be just like you say; need to be consistently good, slow progress to climb...

This was my point earlier though. I think probably 7 out of 10 games are like this for me.
 
Soldato
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7 of 10 would be a dream for me... still though I'm a Humble subscriber so I've got an alt account, perhaps an account that hasn't been active from launch will have a different experience
 
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