Re: Ranked Season 2 - Results & Insights
Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2021 6:24 am
Even though I've seen people say it wasn't a problem, I think stream sniping, queue stacking, queue dodging etc. was a serious issue.
Matchmaking has to be as random as possible to function properly, but in the last season it was very easy to gather outside information on one's next matches.
This basically created a system where weaker players were preyed on and relentlessly farmed. Names of these players were readily shared as soon as they logged on.
The Ranked discord server is a large part of what made this possible, and even though that server did good things for Ranked as well, I am not convinced it amounted to a net positive.
It is also the lack of seperation ("bracketing") between players of different skill levels which made it possible to fish for matches against easy opponents. This is why I've argued from the beginning that some sort of beginner bracket is needed to resolve at least the worst of the skill imbalances. 0-999 was simply too large of a bracket given the size of the population, and mixed players that could easily have reached 1k MMR (given more games played) with players who would never have a hope of even getting positive MMR.
Matchmaking has to be as random as possible to function properly, but in the last season it was very easy to gather outside information on one's next matches.
This basically created a system where weaker players were preyed on and relentlessly farmed. Names of these players were readily shared as soon as they logged on.
The Ranked discord server is a large part of what made this possible, and even though that server did good things for Ranked as well, I am not convinced it amounted to a net positive.
It is also the lack of seperation ("bracketing") between players of different skill levels which made it possible to fish for matches against easy opponents. This is why I've argued from the beginning that some sort of beginner bracket is needed to resolve at least the worst of the skill imbalances. 0-999 was simply too large of a bracket given the size of the population, and mixed players that could easily have reached 1k MMR (given more games played) with players who would never have a hope of even getting positive MMR.