Overwatch Official Discussion, v4: Doomfist Me, Daddy..

Status
Not open for further replies.
Got my free Overwatch league skin, wish they would give us two of them at least.
<2>
 
I don't like the idea of skins not being attainable for free. It's only cosmetic but whatever.
 
100 Tokens = 1 OWL Skin.

You can buy 100 Tokens for $4.99. Half the proceeds go to the team.
I thought you meant Ana's owl skin lol, was scratching my head, is it that special?

I'll get Reinhardt's, that yellow stands out.
 


title says EA, but it talks about activision as well.

start at 4:55

This is talking about a two year old patent for matchmaking that EA has, but you can bet your bottom dollar Activision has something similar.

the patent seeks to maximize player engagement not fair or balanced matchmaking.
Matchmaking connects multiple players to participate in online player-versus-player games. Current matchmaking systems depend on a single core strategy: create fair games at all times. These systems pair similarly skilled players on the assumption that a fair game is best player experience. We will demonstrate, however, that this intuitive assumption sometimes fails and that matchmaking based on fairness is not optimal for engagement.
In this paper, we propose an Engagement Optimized Matchmaking (EOMM) framework that maximizes overall player engagement. We prove that equal-skill based matchmaking is a special case of EOMM on a highly simplified assumption that rarely holds in reality. Our simulation on real data from a popular game made by Electronic Arts, Inc. (EA) supports our theoretical results, showing significant improvement in enhancing player engagement compared to existing matchmaking methods.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.06820

The matchmaking is based to maximize engagement and not fair play. So they will try to influence the outcome of the game to avoid "player churn" as much as possible. So if the system thinks that you would be more engaged with a win or a loss, then the system will try to rig the match to make it the probable outcome.

Here's a pic they made to illustrate it,
2-Table1-1.png



How many times have you felt like you have been forced to team with the biggest potatoes possible multiple games in a row? How about when you go on a massive win streak, why is it that you can predictably know that there is an unnatural feeling losing streak coming your way right on cue?

People have been saying for over a year that the system feels off, that forced streaks ARE A THING.

I would like to know if Overwatch uses a fair and balanced matchmaking system or if they do based on player engagement.

OW matchmaking has always been fair to me. I've had hundreds of matches where I'm teamed up with potatoes and we get streamrolled. I've also had hundreds of matches where the enemy team was all potatoes and we steamrolled them. The shitty instances are more likely to stick to memory though, especially for people who need an excuse as to why they're not where they think they should be. Yeah, it happens in streaks, but when you get a large enough sample size (hundreds or thousands of matches), that's just how the WLD distribution is gonna land. You're not gonna get WLWLWLWLWL.

Players need to either accept that they're only as good as they are, or take steps to git gud if climbing means that much to them. The players in GM or top 500 aren't there because the matchmaker likes them, so it showers them with win streaks. If such a system is in place for OW, and I don't believe there is, these players have done the work to climb and succeed in spite of it. And those who haven't, well, we're not good enough.

That video definitely makes sense when it comes to games where you upgrade equipment, acquire guns, etc. But in OW, it's all cosmetic. No OW lootbox is going to have an item that affects your stats in any way. After losing 10 in a row, you're not gonna drop $40 for 50 loot boxes hoping to get a bigger magazine and suppressor for Soldier: 76. Currently, the only thing that really gets players to buy lootboxes is seasonal events. Maybe I missed it in the video, but I'm not sure I see what OW has to gain from forcing streaks; it's definitely not to get you to spend money.
 
The only OWL skin that's remotely tempting to me is Seoul Moira. That color scheme should go great with her gold nails and gauntlets. Other than that, meh.
 
OW matchmaking has always been fair to me. I've had hundreds of matches where I'm teamed up with potatoes and we get streamrolled. I've also had hundreds of matches where the enemy team was all potatoes and we steamrolled them. The shitty instances are more likely to stick to memory though, especially for people who need an excuse as to why they're not where they think they should be. Yeah, it happens in streaks, but when you get a large enough sample size (hundreds or thousands of matches), that's just how the WLD distribution is gonna land. You're not gonna get WLWLWLWLWL.

Players need to either accept that they're only as good as they are, or take steps to git gud if climbing means that much to them. The players in GM or top 500 aren't there because the matchmaker likes them, so it showers them with win streaks. If such a system is in place for OW, and I don't believe there is, these players have done the work to climb and succeed in spite of it. And those who haven't, well, we're not good enough.

That video definitely makes sense when it comes to games where you upgrade equipment, acquire guns, etc. But in OW, it's all cosmetic. No OW lootbox is going to have an item that affects your stats in any way. After losing 10 in a row, you're not gonna drop $40 for 50 loot boxes hoping to get a bigger magazine and suppressor for Soldier: 76. Currently, the only thing that really gets players to buy lootboxes is seasonal events. Maybe I missed it in the video, but I'm not sure I see what OW has to gain from forcing streaks; it's definitely not to get you to spend money.
Now of course we, and by we I mean me, don't know for sure if ow has a system to maximize fair play or maximize engagement. So I may be way off but...

The whole point of my post is that the match making system proposed in the patent is built to maximize engagement, and not fair play, which would be crazy if true considering ow is a wanna be esport.

So they're whole goal is to keep people engaged from event to event so hopefully they will spend money on loot boxes. OW has made a ton of money already off of loot boxes, and you can't make money from a player buying loot boxes if that player stops playing OW. Hence keeping players engaged.

It's not about rank, it's about a wonky match making system. I think overall most people are about at where they belong, me included.

Also I am not too focused on the one example of the pic I posted as there could be so many different methods used. It is just one of many techniques.

There could be a million ways of measuring engagement, and a million ways of maximizing it through match making. The possibilities are endless.

They could be pairing helpful positive people with toxic people in hopes they will placate the toxic person. They could be pairing one tricks with flex players, because maybe their numbers indicate that one tricks quick real quick when paired with each other consistently...
Who knows if it's not based on skill!

What we do know is that "games as a service" have become scientifically engineered with casino like tactics to keep people engaged. It's pretty standard for GaaS to hire casino like addiction experts to implement features that maximize engagement.

And the fact that Ow won't consider a role selection or team builder is strange..and they even penalize you if you have more than a four stack which won't allow for the system to adjust team engagement.

I maybe off because the ow community is so fucking weird that they make games seem so unnatural.
 
Last edited:
The only OWL skin that's remotely tempting to me is Seoul Moira. That color scheme should go great with her gold nails and gauntlets. Other than that, meh.
Yeah I see no point in the league skins. I'll take a pass. Lol
 
So they're whole goal is to keep people engaged from event to event so hopefully they will spend money on loot boxes. OW has made a ton of money already off of loot boxes, and you can't make money from a player buying loot boxes if that player stops playing OW. Hence keeping players engaged.
Okay, this makes more sense to me now. I was looking at it as using "gear envy" to get people to buy loot boxes. This is more about retention then. Yeah, that definitely sounds plausible.

But, if it is the case though that OW does have a similar system in play, it gets a big fat shrug from me. Much like when I get a team of 5 DPSers who aren't worth their weight in potatoes, I'm just gonna focus on what I can control, and that's my own play. Even assuming that there's a system in place to fuck with me, that should be all the more reason to make improvement my only priority.
 
Got my NYE D.Va skin for my freebie. I've only recently got into Overwatch but skin pricing controversy aside, a league sounds pretty interesting. Also I read something about there being other ways to earn skins over time, I imagine there will be giveaways and such to those who watch the league games on Twitch.
 
Okay, this makes more sense to me now. I was looking at it as using "gear envy" to get people to buy loot boxes. This is more about retention then. Yeah, that definitely sounds plausible.

But, if it is the case though that OW does have a similar system in play, it gets a big fat shrug from me. Much like when I get a team of 5 DPSers who aren't worth their weight in potatoes, I'm just gonna focus on what I can control, and that's my own play. Even assuming that there's a system in place to fuck with me, that should be all the more reason to make improvement my only priority.
Wether the system is wonky or not, it appears to be for the most part evenly applied.

I would just be very curious to if ow has a system like this, and what makes it tick.

Because inevitably some people will have been taking advantage of the system by complete accident, while other have been getting screwed by accident. But for most it will have been applied evenly that you got screwed as much you got hooked up.

Because right now people are trying to game the system and they don't even really understand how it works.. really no one does as some of the details are somewhat ambiguous.

Would be funny
 
The only OWL skin that's remotely tempting to me is Seoul Moira. That color scheme should go great with her gold nails and gauntlets. Other than that, meh.
I got Dynasty Reaper, I'm probably getting my Gold Shotguns tonight and it's going to look siiick. I think they're going to be giving tokens for watching the streams on Twitch, so it shouldn't be too hard to add a few to the collection.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top