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There's been a lot of talk about the new rules on the PTR regarding Season 2 and the +/-500 rating limitation on players grouping together.



I understand it has to do with players attempting, and mostly succeeding, to abuse the system, earning wins and "Top 500" rewards, et cetera. I commend Blizzard recognizing the problem and acting upon it.



However, there is another issue that has never been resolved, and it will now come to a head.



In competitive games, each player earns points, or is reduced points, towards their skill rating. Unlike traditional comp games, Overwatch does not simply base this on a win or a loss, although that is indeed the main factor. Unfortunately, the formula used to determine skill rating increases and decreases also takes in your personal performance in the game.



In a perfect utopia, this is the best way to do it. After all, you should be judged on how good YOU are, right? I mean, just because you won the match doesn't necessarily mean that YOU did well, or just because you lost doesn't mean that YOU did poorly? Amiright?



But we don't live in a perfect world, and even though this is a game ran, ultimately, on just 1's and 0's, the in-game world isn't perfect, either. Short of installing SkyNet or the Matrix, and even then, really, you cannot incorporate or represent the human element into a formula.



When you play with a team (and you're ALWAYS with a team in OW, whether you queued up as solo or not), there are different roles and different enemies. Every character is different, every role is different, how unique characters go about performing their role is different, and how players use those same characters to achieve the same or differenent result is ... different ... and thus you have an infinite amount of outcomes.



When you play as a support, you can have a long, grueling match and you can be healing your butt off, constantly, and even doing damage or boosting damage, or whatever. Lots of action, lots to do, lots of responsibility. But it simply doesn't compare to doing mostly only damage in a damage-dealing role. And when the game is quick, and you steamroll your opponents, there's not much for you to do except enjoy the ride and toss some small heals here and there while your teammates dole out tons of damage to ill-prepared enemies. You cannot compare, even if you are shooting your little pistol's butt off.



The algorithm does not take all of this in to account well at all (nor can it, no matter how many little tweaks are made), and it doesn't give enough credit for all the other things you do as a healer, like take a point, perfectly timed rezes, sniping turrets, speed boosting, winning a 1v1 at close range with a Genji, stopping an Ultimate, and all that stuff.



When it's all said and done, and this has been documented time and time again, a team that starts playing together and does 100% of their placement matches together ... results in vastly different ratings for each member. And guess what, the supports are all at the bottom of the ratings relative to their other team members.



Requests for inquiries into this matter have fallen on deaf ears and no responses (to my knowledge) have been made.



On the PTR, it's the same story all over again.



Friends are playing together and completing their placements together, only to find out they can no longer play together because the support is woefully below the 500 skill rating threshold.



This skill rating difference doesn't affect "Pro Teams" in actual competitive events, because those are custom games. However, it does mostly affect the other 99% of players in Comp as well as the Pro Teams in comp when they practice. Hard to practice in Comp when you can't even play together, and not really fair to release their righteousness on to the unwitting casuals in QP. And just because most players aren't on six-stack teams doesn't mean it affects them any less.



This is not a post to ask for a revision of the 500 point threshold, however.



Nay.



No adjustment will ever work correctly. It will either be too stringent or too lax, and will forever prevent the majority of friends from all playing with each other on the same team as well being abused for the very reason it was installed in the first place.



My goal is also not to allow, specifically, friends with noticeable differences in rank from playing with each other even if they aren't abusing the system. That would not be fair to the rest of the team they are on, would cause matchmaking problems, and is just not good for the community as a whole.



So, what is it that we should do?



Simply, the answer is for skill rating increases and decreases to only account for a win or a loss. That's essentially it. It is the solution. It is what it is. I appreciate Blizzard's attempt at really trying to incorporate personal skill into the equation, but it is high (noon) time to end the experiment. Sooner rather than later.



We can keep the +/- 500 intact, avoid the abusers, but also allow people that play together and win/lose the same games together to continue playing together.



This is a team game, after all. The team should rise and fall together. And if the support really isn't that good, then the rest of the team will eventually suffer. Any solo players joining 5-stack or less may win some extra games and get some extra SR out of it, but he/she will eventually fall down to where they need to be.



Now, there are some options open available to us as well, to kinda spice it up a bit, but not too much.



There is the option to keep a small bonus based on the number of consecutive wins (or losses). This doesn't affect specific players uniquely within a team that is playing together, and it helps solo players rise or fall as well to where they need to be.



You could, potentially, alter the amount of points received based on a team's average skill level and whether it was a win or a loss. For instance, if you're in the mid-tier at Diamond, wins and losses could be worth the same amount. Perhaps some of the lower tiers wins are worth slightly more than a loss, helping lower players not feel helpless. Higher tiers, accordingly, could have wins worth less so they really have to grind it out to be the best of the best of the best (of the best). So long as the ENTIRE team is earning the same amount, this is okay.



One could also keep the individual SR ratings for every player on every team ... but a shared victory would award points by tossing everything in to a big pot, figuratively, and doling out the points equally amongst all the team members.



All of this would mean that friends and teams that play together can continue to do so. They are working as team together. They are accomplishing achievements together. They should be rewarded together.



The Olympics don't give out varying sizes of gold medals to the winners of a team sport based on individual algorithms, and we shouldn't be doing it in Overwatch, either.



This is not comparing similar apples, or apples to oranges, nor apples to any other type of vaguely familiar object that used to be a fruit but is now just under the shelves while it decays at Walmart because some punk kid with no manners that loves to say "GG EZ" decided to roll it under there like he was playing hockey with those stupid tennis shoes with wheels underneath. Stupid Kid. GET OFF MY LAWN!



Nope.



Trying to compare Healer skill to DPS skill is like comparing Unicycles to your Aunt Flo's rose garden. Yes, perhaps on some theoretical level it may be possible to find some sort of comparison, but really you're just reaching and it can't be taken seriously.



The last thing we want or need is for people to start throwing games just so they can play with their friends/teammates again, as that's not fair to anybody.



For the good of the game, as well as the mental stability of fragile support minds everywhere, the way skill rating is determined needs to change.



Thank you for reading, and, uh ...



MEI-K OVERWATCH GREAT AGAIN!



TLDR:



This discussion focuses on low support rank gains relative to other teammates.



Teams that do placement matches will quickly be separated from each other and the support players on that team will not be allowed to play with the very same people he placed with even with the same win/loss record.



Gaining rank points based solely on the win or loss of a match, and not individual performance that can vary dramatically depending on a million different factors unique to every game (most of which favor damage over healing), is the only way to resolve the situation without rank differences being open to abuse by cheaters.



An equation only looks at numbers and relative numbers. It cannot possibly understand a person's ability to create those numbers or the impact another teammate has to enable those numbers via direct or indirect action or inaction.