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[Plywood]

RE: Frustration with ranks as a solo-queuer:

So I have some measure of experience with systems like this, having spent a lot of time playing (of all things) Magic: The Gathering Online. MTGO uses a traditional ELO system to rank players. You typically see rankings from 1500 on the very low end to 1900 on the super-elite. In general, 1650 is about average, 1700 is above average, 1750 is good, 1800 is great, and 1850+ are the masters of the game. 1900 is considered god-like and generally unsustainable for long periods of time.

Now, if you've ever played Magic, you know that there is a lot of luck (we like to call it "variance") in the game. I would venture to say that the outcome of 20% of all games (not matches) of Magic are determined by factors other than the player's skill level at the table (bad matchups in terms of deck construction, you drawing poorly, the other guy just having "the nut draw," etc). The community accepts this - but it means that ELO is a very poor "in the moment" representation of your actual skill level. What you learn to understand over time is that your rating at any given moment is "orbiting" your actual rating. It will climb higher than you deserve if you get a string of free wins, or sink lower than you deserve if you get a string of bad beats.

I've applied the same mental model to this game as a solo-queuer. I fully expect to see significant fluctuations in my competitive rating based on factors outside of my control (i.e., team composition). And I'm okay with that - I wouldn't be queuing competitive if I wasn't prepared to see that. What I hope to see is the overall trend improving over time, because that means that I'm achieving my goal of getting better.

Well said, kind of how I feel about it.

 

[eek5]

2W6L as Lucio/Mercy, 1W5L with offensive heroes. I'm doing terrible in comp lol

 

[Data West]

There's million of people who rather solo play due to various factors and Blizzard is not gonna cut out that chunk just for the sake of proper team. This is a problem that plague in every multiplayer team games. Destiny, CoD, LoL,Dota and even Overwatch to name a few example

That's what the quick play queue is for. In WoW, there's a random battleground and a rated battleground and you can't just queue into the rated battleground solo.

 

[Deleted member 325805]

Kaplan just added this:

"No plans to reset skill rating. Basically, very little skill rating adjustment is happening in either direction. It's a zero-sum bug. The skill rating system is entirely player-relative. This is a bug that affects everyone equally. Your losses on Control maps are also not being adjusted as much as they should... The bottom line is Control maps aren't really adjusting players in either direction as much as they should. On the bright side, wins still yield competitive points...

The fix will be live soon OR we will disable the Control maps."

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20745755424?page=3#post-58

Thank fuck, control maps are a complete waste of time right now.

 

[Tabby]

2W6L as Lucio/Mercy, 1W5L with offensive heroes. I'm doing terrible in comp lol

Doing better than me at least. I guess I'll just never play as a support ever!

 

[Defuser]

That's what the quick play queue is for. In WoW, there's a random battleground and a rated battleground and you can't just queue into the rated battleground solo.

People paid the same price for a game and not allowed to play in ranked to get content because they are solo? This isn't WoW nor a MMO and shouldn't apply this logic here.

 

[LAM09]

I see a patch has come out for XB1. Seems like competitive play has come early. Hope the same happens to PS4.

 

[abundant]

That's what the quick play queue is for. In WoW, there's a random battleground and a rated battleground and you can't just queue into the rated battleground solo.

If Blizzard wanted solo players to play Competitive Mode, then they should've had two separate modes - One for solo and another for groups. Yes, it means longer queue times but it fixes the issue of having randoms vs. a pre made team.

 

[Vitanimus]

man placement matches are so tough. 1 win and 4 losses. :/ keep asking people to communicate and given a cold reception. sucks to get stomped so bad!

 

[R0ckman]

man placement matches are so tough. 1 win and 4 losses. :/ keep asking people to communicate and given a cold reception. sucks to get stomped so bad!

Are people not responding are just responding like idiots?

 

[Nimby]

This was a fun game. We won both points btw, the other team was reeeaaallly good at stalling.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

People paid the same price for a game and not allowed to play in ranked to get content because they are solo? This isn't WoW nor a MMO and shouldn't apply this logic here.

What content? It's all the same maps/modes/characters.

Even in WoW your "Raid Finder" group is not the same as a regular raid because it assumes everyone is playing solo and thus, they have to tune the difficulty and mechanics way down. Similarly, playing Overwatch competitively requires more organization than 6 solo players who don't talk to one another and never change heroes.

I don't think they should prevent solo players from queuing, but you shouldn't be able to play ranked without a mic and joining the voice chat. If you're playing competitive without a mic then you're inherently playing in a noncompetitive way which defeats the whole purpose of the mode.

 

[duckroll]

They have to allow solo queue for all modes. It makes no sense otherwise. Oh now you want a requirement of mic and voice chat too? That's cute. Look, none of that is going to filter out bad players who don't give a fuck. It'll just punish players who do give a fuck but want to join a game and play with decent people but might not have a mic or want to voice chat.

 

[GwyndolinCinder]

What content? It's all the same maps/modes/characters.

Even in WoW your "Raid Finder" group is not the same as a regular raid because it assumes everyone is playing solo and thus, they have to tune the difficulty and mechanics way down. Similarly, playing Overwatch competitively requires more organization than 6 solo players who don't talk to one another and never change heroes.

I don't think they should prevent solo players from queuing, but you shouldn't be able to play ranked without a mic and joining the voice chat. If you're playing competitive without a mic then you're inherently playing in a noncompetitive way which defeats the whole purpose of the mode.

Surprised by the amount of people here, who have never played a moba.

 

[PenguinPoacher]

Hours of progress, losst in one game, who the fuck said this is okay. Fuckin is a blizzard game after all.

edit: also lol, yes me and zemm are grouped.

How do you lose hours of progress in one game? That is actually impossible.

 

[X-Frame]

I see a patch has come out for XB1. Seems like competitive play has come early. Hope the same happens to PS4.

For real?

 

[Dylan Sexbang]

Console patch is live on Xbone- McCree can suck it.

 

[GwyndolinCinder]

How do you lose hours of progress in one game? That is actually impossible.

KOTH is broken and rage quitters on enemy team. We were getting pixels for wins, then we lost one payload map and lost it all.

 

[LAM09]

For real?

https://twitter.com/PlayOverwatch/status/748565630434021377

 

[TurboLibre]

man placement matches are so tough. 1 win and 4 losses. :/ keep asking people to communicate and given a cold reception. sucks to get stomped so bad!

Yep. Don't think I've had a response yet when I try to chat and group up the team or throw out a different strategy other than running into the grinder one by one.

I don't know what that flag under my portrait is though. Everyones is purple with a number, or purple with a dash. I have a white one with a gold emblem on it.

 

[eek5]

If Blizzard wanted solo players to play Competitive Mode, then they should've had two separate modes - One for solo and another for groups. Yes, it means longer queue times but it fixes the issue of having randoms vs. a pre made team.

How do you queue with 5 people?

 

[Gentle Rodriguez]

How do you queue with 5 people?

If it's anything like Dota, you won't be able to.

 

[optimus8936]

https://twitter.com/PlayOverwatch/status/748565630434021377

So Xbox has it live, but PS4 is still going through approval.

RIP PlayStation

 

[Dead Prince]

So Xbox has it live, but PS4 is still going through approval.

RIP PlayStation

approval... more like sony just wants to keep the mccree in there as long as they can /s

 

[CybernatonEvolution]

Yep. Don't think I've had a response yet when I try to chat and group up the team or throw out a different strategy other than running into the grinder one by one.

I don't know what that flag under my portrait is though. Everyones is purple with a number, or purple with a dash. I have a white one with a gold emblem on it.

That icon is your rank/PTR. It is a dash if you haven't finished the placement test, and a gold icon if you are a top 500 player in PTR. The gold icon is bugged currently, as it occasionally appears instead of a dash or your actual rank that appears on your profile or the ranked pic that displays your score.

 

[Haly]

I think the matchmaking should segregate solos and duos from groups of 6 but if Dota's any indication, one naturally becomes "real man's MMR" and the other is "mmr for babbies", because you can get carried in a 5-man but you have to carry yourself in solo queue.

 

[Interfectum]

So Xbox has it live, but PS4 is still going through approval.

RIP PlayStation

How is approval still a thing on these consoles? So dumb.

 

[Zemm]

Competitive on console will be infested with Torb's until the nerf right? Might need to see if I can find a stream of this nonsense haha

 

[styl3s]

Competitive on console will be infested with Torb's until the nerf right? Might need to see if I can find a stream of this nonsense haha

Maybe the nerf will come with the competitive patch.

 

[optimus8936]

Maybe the nerf will come with the competitive patch.

Blizzard said torb nerf would be late July, so it probably won't be with competitive.

 

[LAM09]

So Xbox has it live, but PS4 is still going through approval.

RIP PlayStation

Seems that way.

 

[Babalu.]

Went 10-0 on my placements yesterday. I ended up lower then I thought probably because I was healer half the games (which i heard nets you lower points) and also because half the matches were KotH. But after going 10-0 on placements with around 2-3 gold medals each time and i ended up with rank 55. Most of my crew is 50-58 and we were facing a bunch of 55+ teams as well.

Hope they fix the KotH point bug because overall i played 13 matches and won 12. But that one loss was on an assault/escore flip the coin we got defense we got fucked map. So i ended up going down to rank 54. Kind lame you lose almost a whole rank from that one loss.

ohwell. my team is dominating and its nice. I want to say the only reason we lost that one match was because a couple of us didnt realize that the coin flip means they only got to cap the first point. A couple of us picked based on the whole map when they just came in and wiped to the first point and won. all good though.

 

[styl3s]

Blizzard said torb nerf would be late July, so it probably won't be with competitive.

Looks like i won't bother with console competitive till late july then.

 

[abundant]

Competitive on console will be infested with Torb's until the nerf right? Might need to see if I can find a stream of this nonsense haha

If you are smart, then you'd know to only play competitive with a full group, since the Multi Torb strategy isn't as viable in group play. Solo players are SOL though until the nerf comes out.

Looks like i won't bother with console competitive till late july then.

It would be best to wait for the next season then. Season 1 ends in August, and we don't know if the nerf will fix Multi Torb.

 

[Zemm]

Holy fuck, quick play solo is even worse now that competitive is out. I didn't think there would or could be players this bad.

 

[RemiLP]

How do u counter soldier?

 

[More Fun To Compute]

How do u counter soldier?

Kill him.

 

[mbpm1]

How do u counter soldier?

Shred him up close with flankers/Mei/Roadhog

Or snipe him

Maybe Junkrat

 

[GitarooMan]

How do u counter soldier?

Hook him

 

[Shake Appeal]

Soldier 76 is a pretty good counter to Soldier 76, imo.

 

[Vitanimus]

finished my placement with a ranking of 42... yikes!

 

[Canucked]

How do u counter soldier?

It's dangerous to go alone, take this;

Stand behind reinhardts shield or group with support and shoot him.

 

[Forerunner]

So far so good, 16-7 in comp. I’ve been doing it solo still. I did have one game were I teammate up with a friend. She’s 36, so considerably lower than me (I’m at 54). The mm did somewhat decent job getting even teams that game, I kind of rolled over the other team lol. I had +17k damage and +40 kills that game. I love the smell of pulse munitions in the morning!

Only 284 more wins to go!

 

[Bigg_Oggy]

Those are amazing, but as a Reaper main those names give me the worst kind of second-hand embarrassment.

I don't know. PileofBodies seems pretty appropriate for Reaper.

Also sounds like a metal band.

 

[yeehamuffins]

After a bad run on my first 6 matches (2-4) just decided to play out my last four in solo queue to see how it fell... and got 4 straight wins. Granted, one was due to 3 of the enemies leaving at the start of the match, but still. Got a newfound respect for Zarya after playing her on Attack in most of the matches, she's a damn beast when you've got a team that's not hiding behind cover and is willing to stick their noses out to let you pop a shield on them.

Initial placement 54. Higher than I expected.

 

[GraveRobberX]

I don't know. PileofBodies seems pretty appropriate for Reaper.

Also sounds like a metal band.

I'm shocked no ones down "Let the Bodies hit the Floor!" Montage with Death Blossoms

I play Reaper too, thank fuck I'm not on there, did get some GAFfers to jab my way when I got POTG as Reaper as GraveRobberX >_>;

 

[charpunk]

AWWW YEAH! Can't wait to play competitive on xbox tonight.

 

[LucidMomentum]

finished my placement with a ranking of 42... yikes!

What was your W/L? I got 50 with a 7/3, so I'm wondering how or if it scales with W/L ratio as a base, then adds personal efforts / team contribution to the MMR calibration.

After a bad run on my first 6 matches (2-4) just decided to play out my last four in solo queue to see how it fell... and got 4 straight wins.

Initial placement 54. Higher than I expected.

Nice! You wouldn't happen to know how many KotH / Payload maps you played, would you?

I'm curious to see how much maps skew MMR as well.

Ideally if we could get like 4-5 people to do their placement matches, noting win and loss order, and what maps and roles they played, as well as medals earned we could spreadsheet it up and maybe have a decent idea of what seems to matter most for MMR.

But that's me being a nerd. Better to just play and enjoy the slightly more competitive bracket instead of worrying about numbers.

I am curious to see if there's an upper limit to calibration, like if someone could theoretically calibrate at 70 or if it's capped to say 58.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

I still like spamming "I need healing" and quietly moping around the ready room before a match when I play Reaper.

 

[Animator]

Nothing is more fun than ice walling in front of your team when Zarya uses her alt. You can taste the frustration of a wasted ult.