The problem with competitive

General Discussion
1

Competitive Overwatch has the worst system of any game I’ve played. I am dead serious, it is the absolute most painful experience one can possibly imagine. And its all Blizzard’s fault. Even worse - they will never change it because it does what it is supposed to do - make people purchase new copies of the game. At first, like the rest, I thought they were simply incompetent but then I realized it is a carefully crafted system to make grinding as painful as possible and new account purchase as desirable as possible.

But why? Their biggest mistake was revealing how it works. Its then very easy to see how it creates 100% unfair matches.

So how does it work then? It tries to create a 50/50, meaning it will sacrifice players who play well in an attempt to stop players who abuse the system(smurfs and groups specifically designed to boost their member/s). Not surprisingly both parties have insane win rates so it definitely does not work, it doesn’t make a 50/50 game. In a single match I saw a 17 W 4 L smurf paired with a 42 W 16 L group. So 50/50, right Blizzard?

How about the other side then, the guys who are chosen to fight against them? They lose, horribly.

Now lets talk about my experience. After winning a bunch of games suddenly the tides started to change. In one game me and my teammates were forced to play against 3 smurfs(I have a screenshot) and got slaughtered horribly. In another, my team(with a single 3 stack) was forced to play against a full 6 stack(not even kidding, I have a screenshot of this as well). Obviously horribly dominated and slaughtered too.

So I lose a bunch, have a horrible experience and want to play a bit of Torb to let out some steam. Hmm, what is this? 50 SR down and the system suddenly decides I am not worthy to fight clearly superior foes and puts me in a normal game with people of my skill level. 3 gold medals, easy carry.

These are only 3 examples btw. The thing actually keeps repeating. If I do win a bunch and have good stats I will be chosen to “stop” rank abusers from advancing thus giving me unfair lopsided matches for the sake of the 50/50 .

So, having fun yet? I know I do. To the point where I can predict when the game is going to screw me over and when it is going to let me off the hook and play normally.

The worst part is - it is so easy to make it pleasant. You don’t even have to do anything about smurfs. Simply put solo queue - the boosters will disappear, the smurfs who boost will be gone too, no more big stacks to worry about. Then to be rid of the other part of the smurfs who like to play solo and get those sweet wins and self satisfaction - put in a queue for 100+ or 200+ level people and poof, the smurfs are gone!

Of course the smurfs themselves wouldn’t like that, having to play against themselves is exactly what they DON’T WANT. Hence why Blizzard will never do that and they’ll keep losing normal customers as a result.

2 Likes
2

Not just should they add role queue and role based SR and MMR, they also need to add SR based on group size 2 stack sr 3 stack sr 4 stack sr and 6 stack sr do not even allow 5 stack groups, cos it requires a solo player that way, agree with pretty much everything you say’d everything assuming you not ninja editing your post :thinking::crazy_face::man_shrugging:

But imagine SR based on group size and not facing players in solo queue that are in group :thinking::+1:

3

Add an option “do not get matched with/against groups” and at least some problems will disappear. Sure there will still be solo smurfs running around but at least the awful groups will be put somewhere else.

4

There aren’t enough players left in the Overwatch playerbase anymore to do that (at least not in EU). I find the same players repeatedly over the course of multiple days, while playing at different times of the day, and different days of the week.
If you remove some aspects of the matchmaking pool, you’re limiting the number of games you can actually play.

The problem with matchmaking is the fact that groups are already penalised in matchmaking, which deters a hell of a lot of people from actually playing as a group. Your six is often only put against another six, and the often case is, in your six you’re already compensating for someone who isn’t at your same Skill Rating, or has been carried higher than their deserved skill rating.
If the game actually matched players on their MMR and assembled teams purely on that front, then the only benefit of playing as part of a group could be that the players are more coherant and willing to work together, but that isn’t a guarantee.

What Blizzard should have done (and should have done this years ago), is make the game’s matchmaking irrelevant of Party play, and assemble the match fairly.
For example, in the current system… A duo as 3900 + 3600, vs a duo of 3700 and 3800, is the same combined score, but the 3900 player has demonstrated a lot more skill to reach that over the 3600. While all players are within matchmaking range, the team are being penalised more than the 3700 and 3800 players’ team are since the skill difference is more forgiving.
Basically dragging a 3600 player into a 3750 rated game is a significant push out of their skill range, and unless the 3900 player is a 4400 smurf, they aren’t going to solo carry a match for players <150 SR below them.
However, assembling the game so that the 3900 rated player matched an equal 3900 rated player, and the 3600 player was given a 3600 player… the match is even, despite one set of players being in a duo (they may not necessarily be playing heroes that even combo together, it’s not like every duo plays Pharah and Mercy).

5

Why not just make it so you rank up based on your Individual Performance. That would remove Smrufs, and you will always be matched with people of your skill level.

So no more high skilled players in low rank because they are either trolling or got unlucky with teams. And no more low skilled players in high rank just because they got lucky and landed a pretty good team or got carried by friends.

6

No, its impossible, you have to pick heroes you are weak at sometimes, nobody would want to do that with pure performance.

In fact picking characters you are weak at is beneficial because it nets you better teammates.

7

I’m surprised you said nothing about balancing.

Sure, the odd smurf here and there can cause a headache, but it’s so few and far between I don’t even care about it. Playing against stacks? Sure, that can be tough, especially if the stacked team always plays together and has a good understanding of playing together in a group, then if I’m playing solo, I naturally expect them to be more coordinated and do better than my team which is a bunch of solo players and maybe a duo. Again, that’s a problem waaaay down on the list of problems and not something which drove players away.

No my friends, the real problem is game balance, that is at the forefront of most of the problems we have had. The biggest example I can give is Brigitte’s release. 5 second shield bash? Anyone remember that nonsense.

That one single release caused so much headache and frustration in the community, and then the overtuned Hanzo release, etc.

I’m still hopeful things can turn around, hero 30 will def bring back a lot of players to try the game out again, so let’s see.

I haven’t played Overwatch in a week, which is the longest break I’ve taken since I started playing 2 years ago. God damn Apex Legends has won my heart. Never liked the thought of BR games, mainly because PUBG and similar titles looked so damn boring, but with the inclusion of heroes/legends and abilities and ults, an Overwatch player can now dig the BR scene a little.

8

Tell me which hero is so unbalanced you can play them against smurfs and win.

9

Smurfing is a problem, but it’s way down on the list of this game’s issues imho.

Game balance is what destroys the game and drives many people away.

10

Ok, so which hero is so unbalanced it beats smurfs?

11

I still am unsure if it actually pairs you against people based on winrate, Blizzard has never stated this, but it actually might happen, we still have next to no information on the system from blzzard. It quite clearly does it based SR, to most fairly group people with a team average that is equal to their opponents, but yes huge SR difference to equal out sometimes can be bad, the lack of role select is horrible for especially the DPS players and most importantly there is no way for the system to think about a 4k player, who just reached 4k for the first time or a 4k player, that lost 10 games in a row, yet has been top 500 /4500+ 12 seasons in a row, making that match up a complete stomp.

12

They said, clearly, it pairs you based on MMR. SR has nothing to do with it, it is simply an indication where you are. If you get high MMR your games will be filled with smurfs, up to 4, sometimes maybe even more. With losses, bad play and lower MMR your games suddenly become normal.

Still hilarious how a game where 4 of the enemies are below level 50 is impossible yet when they are all silver/gold portraits in the next one it is incredibly easy.

I think one way to check if your MMR could be high for your rank is to see your SR loss/gain. My SR gain yesterday was around +2 for 1 win/1 loss, so this means I am above average for my rank. In theory the system then has a bigger chance of choosing me to play in a smurf game. Harder to do in diamond though because personal performance is extinct.

13

This makes me curious, what do you consider high MMR and at what SR do you see the smurf issue to be worst?

You will gain more for a win the lower your win expectancy is. Also below 3000 there’s some personal performance based SR gains/losses as well.

Say you win a game where your teams avg SR is 100 points below the enemies and then lose a game where your teams avg is 100 below, you will be rewarded slightly more for the win and lose a bit less for the loss in this case, which could leave you with this +2 for 1win/1loss.

If you are below 3000, you could just have performed slightly above avg for your SR in these two games combined.

I don’t really see it telling you anything about your MMR.

Edit:
Here’s the source.

14

Obviously the smurf issue is the worst in diamond. Even if the smurf puts their 100% they’ll still get the same amount of points as everybody else. The difference between a diamond skilled player and a GM is still massive.

There are times when I’ve lost only 21 SR which is frankly stupid considering how many people play at my rank. IF it was simply a difference between the MMR of both teams that means the matchmaker deliberate puts a weaker team against a stronger team. So either I am above average skill for my level and I keep getting matched with smurfs to give them a 50/50 chance OR the matchmaker deliberately puts a team with 29 chance to win against a team with 21 chance to win.

15

I watched ML7 a bit yesterday, doing an unranked to GM challenge.
In his placements he started out playing with gold/plats so i would expect it to be around 2500 MMR.
It took him 11 games (placements + 1) from playing ~2500 MMR games to hit 3500 SR.
(He played his main and tried to place as high as possible so he would be able to reach GM as fast as possible.)

I think most of the so called smurfs around diamond are there because higher ranked players create new accounts to practice other heroes/roles. Because they perform worse on these, it’s harder for them to climb back to their mains rank.
They do this because if they were to switch and practice on their main account, they would just get reported for throwing.
Even though they play much worse on these heroes/roles, they still have the same game knowledge, which rarely have them drop below a certain rank.
Ofc this does create the issue, if they grow tired of losing and decide to switch to their main hero/role, the game can become a lot more one sided.

16

So wait, are the guys with 17 - 4 in low diamond there to practice new heroes? Are you serious? Do you not know how easy it is to throw the 10 games simply to start low and stomp on weaker players???

17

I’m not saying we don’t have this issue, I just sometimes get the feeling people believe it to be worse than it actually is.
It’s like how i see a big increase in people accusing for aimbotting at lower ranks.
It doesn’t mean the person they accuse is actually aimbotting or even smurfing. The player could just have a good/lucky game. Or maybe the person who is accusing was already tilted and are playing worse than usual because of this.

If a person is 17-4, they should either climb out of your SR relatively quickly, or they will start losing games in which case their win rate will drop.

It’s difficult for you to do anything other than assume their intentions.
If you believe they are doing something wrong you can report them.

So far the majority of higher ranked players I’ve met who has alternate accounts, have them to practice rather than to stomp.
The mindset of many high ranked players is that they just wish to improve, but if they are punished for practicing they will try to find a way around it, which leads to alternate accounts.

18

On the other hand the more I play the more I realize how rotten and unrepentant the system is. Ignorance is a bliss.

19

Isn’t it possible that your issue lies more with the playerbase who looks to abuse the system rather than the system itself?

20

I understand that it’s easier to blame the system, as it’s easier to change the system to player behavior than it is to change the player behavior.
But at some point we will have to ask, if it’s actually the best course of action.
At what point do we see more bad than good come from adjusting the system?

To avoid people abusing the system, the system will have to add more restrictions.
People don’t like feeling restricted, so they will try to find a way around it.
If they can’t they will instead cause an uproar for the system to take away their freedom.