So how are your games going lately? [megathread]

[Very Tired]

I did really enjoy the alternate "any hero" option on the anniversary event, but I also feel like there are some heroes that would probably make this event too easy given its set up of slowing marching omnics in three steady streams. Mowing them down with an Orisa or Bastion or something with area denial would probably cheese it too much, or make those heroes mandatory picks and maybe a little less fun.

So, yeah, kinda conflicted because I can see both ways.

It doesn't really matter how much certain heroes can cheese a game, it's all meant for fun. If the players find it fun to run 4 Bastion against a horde of robots, more power to them.

[A-sayo]

I did really enjoy the alternate "any hero" option on the anniversary event, but I also feel like there are some heroes that would probably make this event too easy given its set up of slowing marching omnics in three steady streams. Mowing them down with an Orisa or Bastion or something with area denial would probably cheese it too much, or make those heroes mandatory picks and maybe a little less fun.

So, yeah, kinda conflicted because I can see both ways.

Well yeah, bastion would annihilate the hog, Pharah could destroy anyone (since all incoming damage apart from hog/reaper are projectiles), Orisa/Rein/Mei could prevent a robot from damaging the door, Sym could cover the front area by herself with her turrets and the the left side with her RMB...Mhm...

At least they gave us more heroes to play with instead of sticking with 4, so that's something.

[Jessicka]

It doesn't really matter how much certain heroes can cheese a game, it's all meant for fun. If the players find it fun to run 4 Bastion against a horde of robots, more power to them.

You can use Custom games to go any hero.

[Kelimbror]

Throwing a tantrum really doesn't help your case. There's a simple explanation for the results you're seeing. You just don't want to accept that explanation.

I did realize countering inane repetition with logic was 'throwing a tantrum'. Can't even imagine what dystopian horrors are going on in your brain. Too bad moderators can't be ignored, especially when all they do is provide veiled insults and the equivalent of 'ur bad' in every post they do.

You can use Custom games to go any hero.

Yeah, but rewards and achievements aren't there so it's really not as fun. They really should just add these game modes into the arcade rotation.

[Eapoe]

What that strongly suggests is that you shouldn't have been as high as you were. So on average, you've been losing more points than winning, until you dropped down to where you should be.

That's exactly how the system is meant to work. The adjustments to SR gains and losses are meant to give you more of a shift, if your performance is out of line with your current rank. Nothing you described here shows that there's any kind of flaw in the system, just the system working exactly as intended.

That's the crux of the issue though, isn't it? In your examples, how does the SR system determine where you should be? How is it when I am at 2200 I could lose 40 points 1 game, gain 15 the next for 1/2 a day, and then flip that right around? How does it then determine the same issue if you climb up to 2600 and decide to make you lose 15 points on a loss but gain 30-40 per win, when according to your example it determined I should have been in the 2100-2200 range the whole time?
There is no consistency to the gain:loss ratio, nothing solid to say "this is how it's done," or "this is what it means.."

- - - Updated - - -

On the forum topic, I don't seem to have had any major losing streaks like I have in previous seasons. The worst one I had was about 5-6, but previous seasons I would go on a streak of about 10-15 with maybe 2-4 wins and then back to a small losing streak before going into a 14 game winning streak.
Not sure if they tweaked matchmaking a bit or not, but feels good not having the same experience I had over the last 4 seasons.
Also, had a game this morning at Lunar Colony, playing comp, round 2 my team is on defense and we go with no healers. We won. Shocked and awed, but felt good and confusing.

[NoiseTank13]

Genji is far more reliable taking out tires imo with RMB+SS, and he can take out Zombardiers while the other three deal with bosses. You can also take out Sym's generators and do decent damage to her with Dragonblade before zipping out, but I agree that he's far from optimal.

I don't even see the point of Widowmaker unless you are Kephrii. The Zombardier's just focus her down and if things get hairy she has absolutely nothing to help with that.

Torbjorn and Zenyatta are great additions though.

[Kelimbror]

Torbjorn and Zenyatta are great additions though.

To be honest, it seems like they are mandatory for the harder difficulties. The discord plus torbs just crazy damage output from turret is insane. Molten Core is up for every boss fight and I pretty much take out the tires with right click plus turret. Armor drops less than I thought it would, but I guess that is intentional.

[Endus]

That's the crux of the issue though, isn't it? In your examples, how does the SR system determine where you should be? How is it when I am at 2200 I could lose 40 points 1 game, gain 15 the next for 1/2 a day, and then flip that right around? How does it then determine the same issue if you climb up to 2600 and decide to make you lose 15 points on a loss but gain 30-40 per win, when according to your example it determined I should have been in the 2100-2200 range the whole time?
There is no consistency to the gain:loss ratio, nothing solid to say "this is how it's done," or "this is what it means.."

I seriously have to assume you folks A> aren't tracking your SR gains/losses, and are reacting off recalled impressions, and/or B> your performance is all over the place and you don't see that.

I've been tracking my own SR gains and losses for several seasons, right around the gold/plat breakpoint (been anywhere from 1950-2700 the last two seasons the majority between 2450-2650, the low stuff was REAL early last season because I ended the season before at a low point).

My SR gains and losses are VERY consistent. And when there's a weird value, it's almost always because I had an unusually good or bad match, or was pushed into playing something other than support (which I've been maining). And that makes sense to me, because I'm probably not quite as good at DPS or tanking after focusing on support so much.

As for how it determines this, we know the basics. It figures out from your performance overall where it thinks you "should be". The performance in any individual match also factors in. As does the combined SR difference between teams. Factor all those in, and that's what adjusts the win or loss value up or down from the 25 I assume is the baseline (that's what my data tends to balance out around, at least).

I'm not trying to be rude or condescending. I'm not claiming people are "bad". But the rank system is not a progression system, and people seem to forget that. Its purpose is to find your rank, stick you there, and keep you there. The only reason it should change all that much is if your personal performance isn't in line with that position; if you're consistently playing better, it'll reward you more points and penalize you less, and you'll tend to climb. Vice versa if it's flagging.

And we're talking about a moving baseline. Everyone's improving slowly. A rank 2500 player today is probably better at the game than a rank 2500 player in Season 2. If you want to climb ranking, you need to be improving personally at a faster rate than the average player of your rank.

Can't really get more specific than this; Blizzard is deliberately cagey about exactly how this is all evaluated, because they don't want people gaming the system rather than just trying to play well. But while there are people out there complaining the system is broken, there's a lot of us tracking our data who don't see it.

Track your data. Track all your SR gains and losses. Get some actual data to try and back your assertions, a full season worth of match-by-match data, including heroes played if possible. You won't convince anyone by complaining about how the system feels if you don't have data to demonstrate an actual problem, especially when there's data that shows there isn't such a problem.

[DeadmanWalking]

Meanwhile his Winston is also dead from over-extending. His team is worse off without Winston than mine without Widow. Seen it so many times, in QP and in Comp, in QP Winston will always try to farm me, but it's the same shit, he's ignoring his team and his objective and leaving his role. In comp, they just don't seem to do that, for obvious reasons, which gives Widow a lot more space to work. If it's Genji chasing, he's just doing what he should be; unless Winston has switched specifically to counter me from another DPS which is another plus for my team because there's plenty Winston isn't good for.

In a technical sense, yes, he's a great counter, but in a practical sense he doesn't bother me too much. And, I can always pick up Reaper or D.Va to counter him.

It counts on the map and the enemy team build. If it is wide open and he splits off to deal with you his team will miss him, unless they have another tank to cover for him. if it is close he can deal with you and hop back to the action. Frankly Zenyatta playing peekaboo behind a wall is a better alternative to Winston. That and Widows escape hook is much faster now for get aways.

[Jessicka]

It counts on the map and the enemy team build. If it is wide open and he splits off to deal with you his team will miss him, unless they have another tank to cover for him. if it is close he can deal with you and hop back to the action. Frankly Zenyatta playing peekaboo behind a wall is a better alternative to Winston. That and Widows escape hook is much faster now for get aways.

I've played as Peek-a-boo Zen against a number of Widows, it makes me sad how effective it is. Once I realised, he moved very quickly up my target priority list. Not that he was ever low.

- - - Updated - - -

Anyway, 4 wins, 2 losses and a draw tonight. The draw and one of the losses were against smurfs boosting their customers "friends". It's infuriating how common it is, I'd love for a pure solo-queue mode just to avoid that shit. For all Kaplan's talk of Boosting being 'serious' and 'against the rules', they seem to take precious little action against it. They were talking of developing systems to pick it up and cut it out nearly a year ago now, but still we've seen nothing come of it.

Either way, I'm 60SR up and have the new Mei skin so wasn't a complete waste of an evening.

[Eapoe]

I seriously have to assume you folks A> aren't tracking your SR gains/losses, and are reacting off recalled impressions, and/or B> your performance is all over the place and you don't see that.

I've been tracking my own SR gains and losses for several seasons, right around the gold/plat breakpoint (been anywhere from 1950-2700 the last two seasons the majority between 2450-2650, the low stuff was REAL early last season because I ended the season before at a low point).

My SR gains and losses are VERY consistent. And when there's a weird value, it's almost always because I had an unusually good or bad match, or was pushed into playing something other than support (which I've been maining). And that makes sense to me, because I'm probably not quite as good at DPS or tanking after focusing on support so much.

As for how it determines this, we know the basics. It figures out from your performance overall where it thinks you "should be". The performance in any individual match also factors in. As does the combined SR difference between teams. Factor all those in, and that's what adjusts the win or loss value up or down from the 25 I assume is the baseline (that's what my data tends to balance out around, at least).

I'm not trying to be rude or condescending. I'm not claiming people are "bad". But the rank system is not a progression system, and people seem to forget that. Its purpose is to find your rank, stick you there, and keep you there. The only reason it should change all that much is if your personal performance isn't in line with that position; if you're consistently playing better, it'll reward you more points and penalize you less, and you'll tend to climb. Vice versa if it's flagging.

And we're talking about a moving baseline. Everyone's improving slowly. A rank 2500 player today is probably better at the game than a rank 2500 player in Season 2. If you want to climb ranking, you need to be improving personally at a faster rate than the average player of your rank.

Can't really get more specific than this; Blizzard is deliberately cagey about exactly how this is all evaluated, because they don't want people gaming the system rather than just trying to play well. But while there are people out there complaining the system is broken, there's a lot of us tracking our data who don't see it.

Track your data. Track all your SR gains and losses. Get some actual data to try and back your assertions, a full season worth of match-by-match data, including heroes played if possible. You won't convince anyone by complaining about how the system feels if you don't have data to demonstrate an actual problem, especially when there's data that shows there isn't such a problem.

You act as if I haven't been watching my gains/losses over the last 300 odd games I've played this season. It wasn't a month ago that I made comments about it not making sense that in 2200 rating I would gain 5 points and then lose 40, and the next few matches gain 20 and lose 15-25. You stated even then (yes, in 1 of your replies) that the ranking system was normal and was deciding that that is the ranking I should be at, stuck in that area between 2000-2300. Since then, I've climbed ever so slowly and lately my wins have been much greater gains than my losses, which by your logic the game is deciding I should actually be placed higher than what I am and is trying to help me get there with higher SR obtained.
That makes little to no sense. I have not improved that much over a month, very little actually, and my stats are pretty consistent game to game. Hell, the most inconsistent match I had was yesterday where my team got stomped, I did a whopping 4K healing on Mercy over 2 rounds because either I was constantly dead or my team was, and I lost a whole whopping 5 points. There's no way a system you describe: weighs my performance against other players on that character, map, and team comp, and decides to only net me a 5 point loss when I played like absolute dogshit.

[Endus]

You act as if I haven't been watching my gains/losses over the last 300 odd games I've played this season. It wasn't a month ago that I made comments about it not making sense that in 2200 rating I would gain 5 points and then lose 40, and the next few matches gain 20 and lose 15-25. You stated even then (yes, in 1 of your replies) that the ranking system was normal and was deciding that that is the ranking I should be at, stuck in that area between 2000-2300. Since then, I've climbed ever so slowly and lately my wins have been much greater gains than my losses, which by your logic the game is deciding I should actually be placed higher than what I am and is trying to help me get there with higher SR obtained.
That makes little to no sense. I have not improved that much over a month, very little actually, and my stats are pretty consistent game to game. Hell, the most inconsistent match I had was yesterday where my team got stomped, I did a whopping 4K healing on Mercy over 2 rounds because either I was constantly dead or my team was, and I lost a whole whopping 5 points. There's no way a system you describe: weighs my performance against other players on that character, map, and team comp, and decides to only net me a 5 point loss when I played like absolute dogshit.

Given that plenty of people, like myself, do not see the same kinds of results is why I keep suggesting that the variable that's changing (the player) is what makes the difference, here. If it were a problem with the system as a whole, we'd all be seeing that kind of behaviour, and we're not.

[Eapoe]

Given that plenty of people, like myself, do not see the same kinds of results is why I keep suggesting that the variable that's changing (the player) is what makes the difference, here. If it were a problem with the system as a whole, we'd all be seeing that kind of behaviour, and we're not.

But so far, the majority of the players that post here, are. Anyone who posts about odd losing/winning streaks, as well as people that have widely swinging win/loss ratios are seeing this happen.
You also keep reenforcing the idea that it's based on what character you are on in a combination of what map and how other people play that character on that map. This is obviously not the case, or else there would be no way to track an SR gain/loss if I swap characters every time I die and I happen to die 6 times each round. If I do that, and we win, and I gain 45 points (which this did happen roughly 3 weeks ago), then where is the computation? Is this to suggest that if I play a hero for 45 seconds to a minute, it's going to factor how I did on that character against everyone that's ever played that character for roughly the same amount of time? Imagine how much more rewarded you are for swapping characters nonstop at that point.
You have also not been able to point out how I can gain 30+ SR playing as Mercy 1 game with significantly worse play and gain 10-20 the next with much higher stats and playing like I was a diamond player. You haven't been able to explain how I gained 37 points in a game that went 1 round with us on attack and the entire team left before they started their attack round. There's more going on to suggest it's not just a simple equation like you are making it out to be.

[Endus]

But so far, the majority of the players that post here, are. Anyone who posts about odd losing/winning streaks, as well as people that have widely swinging win/loss ratios are seeing this happen.

Streaks and outliers are expected in any system like this. That alone doesn't demonstrate anything.

And it's hardly surprising that only people who feel the system is unfair make complaints. Nobody makes posts about how fair the system seems to them out of nowhere.

So no; it isn't remotely "the majority of the player base". Not even a little. If it were as chaotic as you folks claim, people wouldn't be able to climb by performing well. Boosting friends couldn't work. And so forth. The system does work, for most people, which is why there's still an expected bell curve of players in terms of SR distribution.

You also keep reenforcing the idea that it's based on what character you are on in a combination of what map and how other people play that character on that map. This is obviously not the case, or else there would be no way to track an SR gain/loss if I swap characters every time I die and I happen to die 6 times each round. If I do that, and we win, and I gain 45 points (which this did happen roughly 3 weeks ago), then where is the computation? Is this to suggest that if I play a hero for 45 seconds to a minute, it's going to factor how I did on that character against everyone that's ever played that character for roughly the same amount of time? Imagine how much more rewarded you are for swapping characters nonstop at that point.

It would assess the time played per character, per map. That's not that hard to figure out. As for you disputing that this is how it works;

Fortunately, when we do put you in a match that we know isn't a 50/50, we adjust your SR gain or loss based on your calculated change of winning. So if you did get placed into a match with only a 20% chance to win and then you lose, you shouldn't lose much SR.

So then why do points for losses and wins seem so random? Well, the amount of MMR (and SR) you go up or down isn't simply a matter of whether you won or lost, and what was your predicted chance of winning. There's a couple of other things at work. One is the matchmaker's confidence in what your MMR should be. Play a lot of games, it gets more certain. Don't play Overwatch for a while, it gets less certain. You go on a large win or loss streak, it gets less certain. The more certain the matchmaker is about your MMR, the less your MMR will change in either direction based on a win or loss.

As a minor factor, we also do evaluate how well you played the heroes you used in a match. The comparison is largely based on historical data of people playing a specific hero (not medals, not pure damage done), and we've done a lot of work to this system based on the community's feedback. In fact, I've seen some people indicate that they don't think we're doing this anymore. We still are. While it's a minor factor compared to wins/losses (The best way to increase your SR is still to play together and win as a team!), doing so does help us determine your skill more accurately and faster.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/over...9737390#post-3

The calculation of your SR adjustment after a match doesn’t look at your teammates, but instead compares you to the performance of other similarly skilled players with that hero across an enormous pool of competitive matches. So, we compare your Genji play to the play of other Genjis, Ana vs. Anas, etc.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/over...ic/20754415323

In Overwatch, whether your MMR goes up or down is contingent on winning or losing. But there are a number of factors that determine how much that rating goes up or down. For example, what map you’re playing on and whether you were attacking or defending is factored in. We know the win rates on attack/defend on all of the maps and we normalize accordingly. Not all wins and losses are equal. We also look at your individual performance on each of the heroes you played during the match. Everyone has better and worse heroes and we have tons of data showing us what performance levels should be like on those heroes. We also look at your opponents and whether or not their matchmaking rating is higher or lower than yours. These are just a few of the things that are considered when determining how your skill should go up or down.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/over...5504371#post-3

I'm not making any of this stuff up. It's all stuff Blizzard themselves have stated in describing how the SR system functions.

[Eapoe]

Streaks and outliers are expected in any system like this. That alone doesn't demonstrate anything.

And it's hardly surprising that only people who feel the system is unfair make complaints. Nobody makes posts about how fair the system seems to them out of nowhere.

So no; it isn't remotely "the majority of the player base". Not even a little. If it were as chaotic as you folks claim, people wouldn't be able to climb by performing well. Boosting friends couldn't work. And so forth. The system does work, for most people, which is why there's still an expected bell curve of players in terms of SR distribution.



It would assess the time played per character, per map. That's not that hard to figure out. As for you disputing that this is how it works;

Fortunately, when we do put you in a match that we know isn't a 50/50, we adjust your SR gain or loss based on your calculated change of winning. So if you did get placed into a match with only a 20% chance to win and then you lose, you shouldn't lose much SR.

So then why do points for losses and wins seem so random? Well, the amount of MMR (and SR) you go up or down isn't simply a matter of whether you won or lost, and what was your predicted chance of winning. There's a couple of other things at work. One is the matchmaker's confidence in what your MMR should be. Play a lot of games, it gets more certain. Don't play Overwatch for a while, it gets less certain. You go on a large win or loss streak, it gets less certain. The more certain the matchmaker is about your MMR, the less your MMR will change in either direction based on a win or loss.

As a minor factor, we also do evaluate how well you played the heroes you used in a match. The comparison is largely based on historical data of people playing a specific hero (not medals, not pure damage done), and we've done a lot of work to this system based on the community's feedback. In fact, I've seen some people indicate that they don't think we're doing this anymore. We still are. While it's a minor factor compared to wins/losses (The best way to increase your SR is still to play together and win as a team!), doing so does help us determine your skill more accurately and faster.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/over...9737390#post-3

The calculation of your SR adjustment after a match doesn’t look at your teammates, but instead compares you to the performance of other similarly skilled players with that hero across an enormous pool of competitive matches. So, we compare your Genji play to the play of other Genjis, Ana vs. Anas, etc.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/over...ic/20754415323

In Overwatch, whether your MMR goes up or down is contingent on winning or losing. But there are a number of factors that determine how much that rating goes up or down. For example, what map you’re playing on and whether you were attacking or defending is factored in. We know the win rates on attack/defend on all of the maps and we normalize accordingly. Not all wins and losses are equal. We also look at your individual performance on each of the heroes you played during the match. Everyone has better and worse heroes and we have tons of data showing us what performance levels should be like on those heroes. We also look at your opponents and whether or not their matchmaking rating is higher or lower than yours. These are just a few of the things that are considered when determining how your skill should go up or down.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/over...5504371#post-3

I'm not making any of this stuff up. It's all stuff Blizzard themselves have stated in describing how the SR system functions.

I never said it was the majority of the playerbase, I stated anyone here who has posted about it has encountered it, and there are quite a few. I've also stated it's not as black and white as you make it out to be, which is clearly evidenced in the last blue post you linked. There's also the post where it states it gets "less certain" based on win/loss streaks, which shows the issue of SR spikes when it comes to gain/loss. Their (Blizzard's) own posts show the contradiction in the rank system based off the info given.
You also stated 1 factor as to how gain/loss is determined to which I stated there is more to it, and according to those posts you linked, there clearly is. If a system is "uncertain" where you should be placed due to a win/loss streak, there is clearly an issue if said system then gives varying gains/losses based on how you play, clearly showing a big swing in SR per match. This is something I've pointed out (as well as others) to be an issue with how the ranking system works.

[A-sayo]

Wouhou ! Finally got the Survivor achievement with 3 randoms (Mccree, S76, Zen, Torb) ! Now to work on the legendary one. >-<

[Endus]

I never said it was the majority of the playerbase, I stated anyone here who has posted about it has encountered it, and there are quite a few. I've also stated it's not as black and white as you make it out to be, which is clearly evidenced in the last blue post you linked. There's also the post where it states it gets "less certain" based on win/loss streaks, which shows the issue of SR spikes when it comes to gain/loss. Their (Blizzard's) own posts show the contradiction in the rank system based off the info given.

The uncertainty in question is what you should reasonably expect in any system with semi-randomized results. Streaks and outliers will happen, that does not demonstrate that there is any flaw.

You also stated 1 factor as to how gain/loss is determined to which I stated there is more to it, and according to those posts you linked, there clearly is.

Let's go to the recent post history;

As for how it determines this, we know the basics. It figures out from your performance overall where it thinks you "should be". The performance in any individual match also factors in. As does the combined SR difference between teams. Factor all those in, and that's what adjusts the win or loss value up or down from the 25 I assume is the baseline (that's what my data tends to balance out around, at least).

I mention three factors in that paragraph. And didn't even claim they were the only ones, just the basics.

If a system is "uncertain" where you should be placed due to a win/loss streak, there is clearly an issue if said system then gives varying gains/losses based on how you play, clearly showing a big swing in SR per match. This is something I've pointed out (as well as others) to be an issue with how the ranking system works.

You're confusing the uncertainty in the internal MMR it has for you, based on your performance and match history, which the per-match adjustments made for performance in any given match, which don't have any stated uncertainty.

Two separate things.

[Eapoe]

The uncertainty in question is what you should reasonably expect in any system with semi-randomized results. Streaks and outliers will happen, that does not demonstrate that there is any flaw.



Let's go to the recent post history;



I mention three factors in that paragraph. And didn't even claim they were the only ones, just the basics.



You're confusing the uncertainty in the internal MMR it has for you, based on your performance and match history, which the per-match adjustments made for performance in any given match, which don't have any stated uncertainty.

Two separate things.

Streaks and outliers in a matchmaking system do, in fact, show flaws with the system.
Your 3 factors, in my opinion, count as 1 as they all deal with which hero you pick. Slight difference of opinion there and I'll adjust any future responses around it.
I'm not confusing anything, as read with complete understanding states that the MMR develops uncertainty if you "stay logged off for extended periods of time," and/or "go on consistent win/losing streaks." That shows an inconsistency with MMR, also showing a flaw with it. As a for example, 3 games tonight since I got home, all losses and I went down almost 90 SR. The only differences between my personal performance from this morning was...damn near nothing, yet every game net me about 25-40 SR losses. Going from yesterday when losses were averaging 10-20 points total to today, personal performance hasn't changed. So, somewhere over the last 24 hours the game the MMR decided I was too high and now needed to be dropped down a bit, even though I've been winning 3 out of 5 games, and only awarding me 18 points on my win for the night before I called it quits for the day? The game I won was on Mercy, the character I've played almost nonstop since the changes (yes, people still have me solo heal most games), the games I lost were Mercy (except 1 where I swapped Zen for Ana), and yet the game MMR felt I suddenly deserved 30+ SR losses over those games when I was losing 10-20 for the last week. Oh, and also felt a need to decrease my average win gain. Yeah, seems like a flawless system to me.
Just a last minute edit, let's address the elephant in the room. The system decides where it thinks I should be and adjusts gains/losses accordingly. That means, for the sake of arguement (like 1 poster just recently), I could technically lose rating based on how the system determines where I should be. In a season where I fell from 2200 at the start to about 2k, and climbed my way up to 2667, just to play 4 games and drop a total of 80 points (3 losses/1 win), where tomorrow I could win 3/lose 1 and be at less than what I was today because the system "feels" I should be where I'm at IS a flawed system. Slowly clawing my way up, just to be violently thrown back down because the game decides I should be there during a 9 hour break in playing the game is messed up. Especially when considering the sudden change in SR difference between wins/losses.

[Endus]

Streaks and outliers in a matchmaking system do, in fact, show flaws with the system.

That's a statement you could only make if you've never studied any kind of statistical theory, ever.

Because if I'm flipping a coin, that pattern will develop streaks and outliers. It's a factor of randomized outcomes, nothing more.

I'm not confusing anything, as read with complete understanding states that the MMR develops uncertainty if you "stay logged off for extended periods of time," and/or "go on consistent win/losing streaks." That shows an inconsistency with MMR, also showing a flaw with it.

That uncertainty is desired, not a flaw. It allows for the system to adapt to a player's change in performance, to more-rapidly push them to the rank they should be playing at. If you log off after pushing hard and practicing every day, and come back three months later with a hand injury, you should probably be dropping in rank really quickly, and the uncertainty component to your MMR allows for that, to more-quickly get you to a rank where you've got a decent shot at winning, rather than your prior rank that you can't keep up at.

As a for example, 3 games tonight since I got home, all losses and I went down almost 90 SR. The only differences between my personal performance from this morning was...damn near nothing, yet every game net me about 25-40 SR losses. Going from yesterday when losses were averaging 10-20 points total to today, personal performance hasn't changed. So, somewhere over the last 24 hours the game the MMR decided I was too high and now needed to be dropped down a bit, even though I've been winning 3 out of 5 games, and only awarding me 18 points on my win for the night before I called it quits for the day? The game I won was on Mercy, the character I've played almost nonstop since the changes (yes, people still have me solo heal most games), the games I lost were Mercy (except 1 where I swapped Zen for Ana), and yet the game MMR felt I suddenly deserved 30+ SR losses over those games when I was losing 10-20 for the last week. Oh, and also felt a need to decrease my average win gain. Yeah, seems like a flawless system to me.

I'm not seeing anything at all in what you describe that would be "wrong", to begin with. And given that the only variable in play was your personal performance, I'm gonna call into question your claim that you were playing just as well on both days.

It's not always a big deal. If the enemy Widow is headshotting you a bunch, your performance is gonna suffer, even if you're doing great otherwise. And it's particularly difficult to claim you were equally capable with all the heroes you play; I'd suggest it's far more likely you're better with some than others, like most people. I play a better Zen than I do a Mercy, and my SR scores reflect that.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

Did they change Mercy's Guardian Angel(or whatever it's called) or is it bugged? It's like I can't control Mercy the way I used to before her change. Like flying longer than I intended too, which wasn't a problem before.
Also, how fucking close do I need to be to ress someone? Feel like I have to run up in melee range almost to ress someone.