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Why the new league system is censoring real MMR positions sub-master level and how to improve it

Hey guys,

I've been playing on PTR, where we are placed in the shoes of 'new players' and noticed a couple of things. Many of you not seem to realise that MM is stilll based on internal mmr, not on leagues. The only way how leagues influence the games you get in is by introducing a cap on league difference you can duoq with.

A hard MMR cap however, would be far more logical. After placing, your mmr is still really sensitive. For example: I placed plat 2 on PTR, my friend placed gold 4. Due to MMR still being really sensitive, and me losing the next 2 games, and him winning them, he got to be first ban when we duoQ'd, indicating that he now was the one with higher mmr.

However, he's still a ton of divisions below me. Sure, because I was now overrated for my division, and he underrated, I got 160 points for a win where he got 240.

It would be more logical for the duoq hardcap to be MMR based. As the system thinks he is the superior player, he gets to ban, although I'm the one able to Q up with master players, while he's not.

Now this is where the promotion/demotion games come in. In between losing some games, I got to easily defend my (undeserved) league placement in between -240 losses by winning a single +160 demotion match. Wouldn't it be more logical to make promotion based on points? From master league on, your placement is determined by your points. However, taking the situation where me and my friend are in on the ptr, it is very possible, that my total amount of points accumulated in the division I'm in is in the negative, without demoting.

To give an easy-to-understand example. I'm 1 game away from my demotion match, I lose, -240 points, win demotion match +160, lose -240, win +160 etc. Meanwhile, my absolute deficit is increasing every two games, while I won't demote because I'm winning the demotion games. An inverse situation occurs for my friend. The reason for this is that the promotion barriers caps is an upper hard cap, while a demotion game is a lower hard cap. So in a hypothetical scenario, where all our games are exactly neturally favoured (50/50), and we keep going WLWL, our mmrs would stay constant, (he'd be at platinum mmr, I'd be at gold mmr) while our leagues do not reflect our relative mmrs, until infinity. In a points-based promotion/demotion system, however, our league placements would gravitate towards our REAL MMRs, and match it more exactly as games progress.

Now, if promotion/demotion were based on points, you'd still be able to discern promotion/demotion games, as blizzard MM knows in hero select the MMR's on both teams, and could trigger some 'promotion/demotion match' banner/animation. You could keep the concept of promotion/demotion, while making the league placement mobility greater, making it easier for the system to let league placement really reflect MMR below master and grandmaster league.

Just my 2 cents, I'm curious for your guys' thoughts and feedback.

You could say that the impact for most players would not be as big, but as an economist, I am trained to study things at the margin, so when evaluating certain aspects of the new system, such as promotion/demotion games, it's important to look at its impact and if it captures/reflects what we want.

TLDR: MMR can still widely diverge from league/division placement, this is especially relevant for new players. It is yet to be seen how hard the soft-reset impact is for people who already played a ton of HL games. Non-points based promotion hampers gravitation of your league/division towards your real blizzard MMR at the sub-GM/M level.

My apologies for the wall of text. I just wanted to provide ample examples and clarification, as people tend to misinterpret stuff frequently on this forum.

Loesby

Posted 8 years, 3 months ago (Source)

I'm really confused that you are implying there was an effective MMR reset on PTR. I've heard of pro players having bad placement records and getting diamond 3 (highest placement) because their mmr was seeded presumably by their QM MMR from previous PTR patches. In my own experience, I duo'd all placements with a friend that is 10 ranks lower than me on the live patch. However, he had never played PTR before and I had played quite a few QMs over multiple PTR patches. We went 7-3 and he was placed diamond 5, while I was placed gold 2 - meaning we could not continue our duo. I don't see any explanation for this other than our starting MMR/confidence ratings were not the same as we began our placements.

Hi Garbagemanz,

I don't see any explanation for this other than our starting MMR/confidence ratings were not the same as we began our placements.

This is likely the case, because of your previous Quick Matches on PTR.

I call it an effective reset because most of the population of this PTR were playing there for the first time. Meanwhile, even players with previous experience have not had many games at all to determine their ratings. It's a volatile rating environment.
Loesby

Posted 8 years, 3 months ago (Source)

Hi Panozen,

Thanks for the feedback! I do want to call out a couple of things for your context.

The PTR matchmaking environment isn’t as comprehensive as it is on the live servers. This is largely because of a few things working in combination: low PTR population, an effective MMR reset, and new placement for every player. We've also widened the MMR windows we use to form matches, and turned off several rules, including the rule that keeps all players in the game close in division. We've done this so that we can get as many players through placement and into the Leagues as possible. Your MMR is also swinging much more widely than most players will experience on the live servers, because everyone is new to the system on PTR. Please take the time to give feedback once you've gone through your live placements next week! Your post was very useful for us, and helped confirm several things we expected going into PTR.

There is also currently a bug causing players to be far more likely to have their Target Rank artificially reduced in their first few matches after Placement. We're planning to push a fix to this bug to PTR later today. It is probably at least part of the reason you're seeing +160/-240. If you send me a private message with your full BattleTag, I'll be able to make sure this is the cause. EDIT: Ouch. You got hit by the bug harder than I've been :( Thanks for being among those to experience it before we went live with it!

Regarding your suggestion to limit parties based on absolute MMR difference: If the only concern were perfect matchmaking, we would make party requirements "You can only queue up in a party with players who have the same MMR as you, to the last bit." However, we also need to consider ease of communication. Since we don't directly show MMR yet, it's impossible for one player to look at another and know instantly whether the two have MMR close enough to queue together in a system like you describe. We went with League difference since it’s easy to recognize and understand.

Good luck in your future matches, and I'll see you in the Nexus.

<blockquote class="quoted">
 <div class="md">I'm really confused that you are implying there was an effective MMR reset on PTR. I've heard of pro players having bad placement records and getting diamond 3 (highest placement) because their mmr was seeded presumably by their QM MMR from previous PTR patches. In my own experience, I duo'd all placements with a friend that is 10 ranks lower than me on the live patch. However, he had never played PTR before and I had played quite a few QMs over multiple PTR patches. We went 7-3 and he was placed diamond 5, while I was placed gold 2 - meaning we could not continue our duo. I don't see any explanation for this other than our starting MMR/confidence ratings were not the same as we began our placements.
</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="md">Hi Garbagemanz,

<blockquote>
I don't see any explanation for this other than our starting MMR/confidence ratings were not the same as we began our placements.
</blockquote>

This is likely the case, because of your previous Quick Matches on PTR.

I call it an effective reset because most of the population of this PTR were playing there for the first time. Meanwhile, even players with previous experience have not had many games at all to determine their ratings. It's a volatile rating environment.
</div> (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/4na2er/why_the_new_league_system_is_censoring_real_mmr/d42t1ri">Loesby</a>)
<hr/>

<blockquote class="quoted">
 
</blockquote>
<div class="md">Hi Panozen,

Thanks for the feedback! I do want to call out a couple of things for your context.

The PTR matchmaking environment isn’t as comprehensive as it is on the live servers. This is largely because of a few things working in combination: low PTR population, an effective MMR reset, and new placement for every player. We've also widened the MMR windows we use to form matches, and turned off several rules, including the rule that keeps all players in the game close in division. We've done this so that we can get as many players through placement and into the Leagues as possible. Your MMR is also swinging much more widely than most players will experience on the live servers, because everyone is new to the system on PTR. Please take the time to give feedback once you've gone through your live placements next week! Your post was very useful for us, and helped confirm several things we expected going into PTR.

There is also currently a bug causing players to be far more likely to have their Target Rank artificially reduced in their first few matches after Placement. We're planning to push a fix to this bug to PTR later today. It is probably at least part of the reason you're seeing +160/-240. If you send me a private message with your full BattleTag, I'll be able to make sure this is the cause. EDIT: Ouch. You got hit by the bug harder than I've been :( Thanks for being among those to experience it before we went live with it!

Regarding your suggestion to limit parties based on absolute MMR difference: If the only concern were perfect matchmaking, we would make party requirements "You can only queue up in a party with players who have the same MMR as you, to the last bit." However, we also need to consider ease of communication. Since we don't directly show MMR yet, it's impossible for one player to look at another and know instantly whether the two have MMR close enough to queue together in a system like you describe. We went with League difference since it’s easy to recognize and understand.

Good luck in your future matches, and I'll see you in the Nexus.
</div> (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/4na2er/why_the_new_league_system_is_censoring_real_mmr/d42rwlm">Loesby</a>)
<hr/>

Tweet

<div class="md">Hi Garbagemanz,

<blockquote>
I don't see any explanation for this other than our starting MMR/confidence ratings were not the same as we began our placements.
</blockquote>

This is likely the case, because of your previous Quick Matches on PTR.

I call it an effective reset because most of the population of this PTR were playing there for the first time. Meanwhile, even players with previous experience have not had many games at all to determine their ratings. It's a volatile rating environment.
</div> (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/4na2er/why_the_new_league_system_is_censoring_real_mmr/d42t1ri">Source</a>)

<div class="md">Hi Panozen,

Thanks for the feedback! I do want to call out a couple of things for your context.

The PTR matchmaking environment isn’t as comprehensive as it is on the live servers. This is largely because of a few things working in combination: low PTR population, an effective MMR reset, and new placement for every player. We've also widened the MMR windows we use to form matches, and turned off several rules, including the rule that keeps all players in the game close in division. We've done this so that we can get as many players through placement and into the Leagues as possible. Your MMR is also swinging much more widely than most players will experience on the live servers, because everyone is new to the system on PTR. Please take the time to give feedback once you've gone through your live placements next week! Your post was very useful for us, and helped confirm several things we expected going into PTR.

There is also currently a bug causing players to be far more likely to have their Target Rank artificially reduced in their first few matches after Placement. We're planning to push a fix to this bug to PTR later today. It is probably at least part of the reason you're seeing +160/-240. If you send me a private message with your full BattleTag, I'll be able to make sure this is the cause. EDIT: Ouch. You got hit by the bug harder than I've been :( Thanks for being among those to experience it before we went live with it!

Regarding your suggestion to limit parties based on absolute MMR difference: If the only concern were perfect matchmaking, we would make party requirements "You can only queue up in a party with players who have the same MMR as you, to the last bit." However, we also need to consider ease of communication. Since we don't directly show MMR yet, it's impossible for one player to look at another and know instantly whether the two have MMR close enough to queue together in a system like you describe. We went with League difference since it’s easy to recognize and understand.

Good luck in your future matches, and I'll see you in the Nexus.
</div> (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/4na2er/why_the_new_league_system_is_censoring_real_mmr/d42rwlm">Source</a>)
 
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