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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0L9Ag.jpg)
In this posting I attempt to explain why it's not a good idea to display MMR in the player profiles, and why it is okay to match random teams versus arranged teams.
The match making rating (MMR) was developed by Blizzard to match players so that the winning likelihood of either one is 50% (or close to 50%, if no exact match is found.) This has several implications:
• MMR is not what many guys consider skill: The ability to get ranked high in tournaments. The MMR is blind to the causes of your ladder wins. Some players who have the MMR to get matched versus actual pros, will never win a tournament unless they are going pro, too. "Winning likelihood on ladder" does relate to "skill", but it does not translate 1:1. Displaying MMR would give many guys the false impression that they finally can compare their true skill.
• MMR considers the winning likelihood relative to the current ladder pool. That means, a ranking of 1000 MMR points today relates to much higher skill than lets say four weeks after the release of the game. It's good that without the display of the MMR, no one can brag around with his peak MMR he could got at any point in the past.
• Again, MMR was developed only to get you an opponent which has the same chance of winning the game as you have right now. When win or loss streaks occur, the match maker uses a mechanic to consider short-term slumps or performance explosions without too large impact on the MMR while it still tries to get you opponents close to your current winning likelihood. To do this, the match maker uses a confidence value is widened or narrowed depending on how close you fulfill the match maker's prediction of the outcome of the game. This mechanic uses arbitrary values which are intended to reflect common casual fluctuations of your performance. MMR is not your true skill.
Because of this, the game can match random teams versus arranged teams. If you are a random team player and if you play enough games, your winning ratio will be around 50%. It doesn't matter if the opponent arranged team uses Skype. You are matched against them because your random team still has about 50% to beat the other team. If a team just began to use voice chat and therefore wins some games, their winning streak will be disrupteded when they get too strong opponents. Then this team will lose some games until the MMR reflects the correct winning likelihood. So yes, you can get an opponent which is stronger than his MMR reflects, but you have the same chance to get an opponent who is weaker than his MMR suggests. The MMR is constantly changing.
The top-ranked arranged teams have a very high winning ratio (70% and higher.) This is because there are not enough teams of the same MMR online. Since the top arranged teams have a higher MMR compared to any other team online (regardless if arranged or random), very good arranged teams can sustain a ratio quite a bit above 50%. That also means, the team who is likely to lose (because of its lower MMR) will only lose few points while the arranged team, if it wins as predicted, gains very little points.
While this is frustrating, it's still better than having no game at all. With separate AT / RT pools, the search time would be longer while the matching wouldn't be any closer. This issue only affects a very small ladder population, though. For any widely available MMR level, the shared AT / RT pools allows faster game search and closer winning likelihood matching.
Recommended read: Excalibur_Z's ladder guide.
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Nobody cares if the MMR makes AT vs RT "even," they care about the horrible games it produces. Why do you insist on posting this everywhere? The idea that nobody would queue for arranged 2s if it had its own bracket is also farcical. It did not take that long to find a game in WC3. In fact, you could argue that more people would play if there was an AT ladder, because the competition would be something other than RT noobs. You could argue that using the same "facts," you are, i.e. none.
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Not really sure what the point of the OP is. This is all well known by now O_o. MMR has a cap as well so it would be dumb for people to brag about having the highest MMR as a top pro when in reality if there was no cap the Pros would have an insanely high MMR and never be able to find games. This is what happened with Huk many patches ago and one of the reasons they had to fix the bad MMR system. Now its more evened out so people can find games faster at the highest level but yet pros will win easier games as they may match weaker opponents in the capped MMR range
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A well written guide, thanks for breaking down MMR into key points. I, for one, always wondered why not Blizzard just displays MMR, but instead chose to create an artificial point system. Now I know some pros and cons to both sides. Also, good structure 
Once again, many thanks!
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Good post but I would still like to know what my mmr is.
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On February 15 2012 03:42 KrsOne wrote:
Good post but I would still like to know what my mmr is.
But why? I mean MMR at the highest point is capped from what I am lead to believe. Knowing it makes no difference even if you are playing at the top of ladder because it doesn't reflect skill at all
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was this whole thread about RT vs AT, or does any of this info apply to 1v1 ladder? im legitly confused right now because i dont think th info is for 1v1 and team games.
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On February 15 2012 03:57 Fortis-Et-Fidus wrote:
was this whole thread about RT vs AT, or does any of this info apply to 1v1 ladder? im legitly confused right now because i dont think th info is for 1v1 and team games. It also applies to 1v1 ladder.
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Basically, I think the Blizzard doesn't want us to know our MMR rating for the reason that they don't want players to focus on the technical side of things but rather just play the game and improve.
Most of the players already have "ladder fear" and would just prefer casual/custom/team games to avoid the stress in playing competitive 1v1 ladder. Another proof of that is the removal of the "Loss" stat in a player's profile.
Bottomline, they just want us to play and improve rather than focus on the technicalities (MMR, match making) of the game which I think that they think is just up for them to know internally.
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On February 15 2012 03:56 BloodThirsty wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 03:42 KrsOne wrote:
Good post but I would still like to know what my mmr is. But why? I mean MMR at the highest point is capped from what I am lead to believe. Knowing it makes no difference even if you are playing at the top of ladder because it doesn't reflect skill at all
Are you sure about that? I seem to remember Huk having such a high MMR on NA that he had to wait 30 minutes for a game.
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not trying to come off as rude or anything
but I am extremly disapointe that this is not an understanding MMA guide
v.v
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Sure mmr is arbitrary but I'd still like to see what it is even if it means nothing. If I brag and the community knows mmr means nothing then my bragging means nothing.
What about my win loss? Win/loss by map and matchup. I understand hiding mmr but this other stuff should not be hidden. Even if its trending toward 50/50. It'd be nice to see that last week I was 22-26, and now I'm 32 and 30..
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You make some good points here and for the most part I agree, however I want to take the chance to correct something that a lot of people have a common misconception of. The ladder does not "attempt to get you a 50% win ratio" it attempts to match you vs someone of equal skill, so if you get 5 wins in a row, bringing your record to 15-10, the ladder system does not say "lets pair this guy vs someone really good, to bring his/her ratio to 50%," instead it says "I should start pairing this guy vs better opponents that match his/her skill level." So if you go on a 5 win streak you will start playing slightly better players, if you didn't just get lucky with your 5 wins and are actually improving you will retain that good win/loss ratio.
I know a lot of people already know this, or think they know this, but I hear people say that they are being paired vs really good players who they can't beat just because they got a win streak a few games ago. Also many more people say that your win loss ratio below masters is meaningless since it's always going to be around 50%, this is not true; if you are improving faster than the other players at your skill level then you will get a slightly higher than 50% win ratio, when that ratio gets high enough then the system promotes you (not based on your ratio, it's just how the numbers work). This is why blizz can release a chart of how many points you need to be promoted, because if your ratio is high enough you will start getting more points than your losing and reach a point where you are playing players that are a higher level then you.
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On February 15 2012 08:07 Nysze wrote:
You make some good points here and for the most part I agree, however I want to take the chance to correct something that a lot of people have a common misconception of. The ladder does not "attempt to get you a 50% win ratio" it attempts to match you vs someone of equal skill, so if you get 5 wins in a row, bringing your record to 15-10, the ladder system does not say "lets pair this guy vs someone really good, to bring his/her ratio to 50%," instead it says "I should start pairing this guy vs better opponents that match his/her skill level." So if you go on a 5 win streak you will start playing slightly better players, if you didn't just get lucky with your 5 wins and are actually improving you will retain that good win/loss ratio.
What you say isn't quite accurate... "Attempting to get a 50% win ratio" and pairing players against others of equal skill are basically equivalent for anyone with a stable MMR, which is almost everyone who's not deliberately manipulating theirs.
The internal design of the MMR system, which was designed by some of the same people as Microsoft's TrueSkill system (which I bring up because it has been publicly documented) is based on there being a well-defined prediction of win likelihood that can be calculated from two players' MMRs.
The game tries to find opponents with MMRs that are as close as possible, which will result in as close as possible to a 50% likelihood of a win. While it doesn't look at a player with a five game losing streak and try to give that player five wins, that losing streak will reduce the MMR to some extent and result in a player being paired against lower MMR players on average, until they either make up the losing streak and wind up where they started, or the MMR achieves a lower equilibrium.
Actually achieving a 50% win ratio over the long run is only possible for players whose MMRs are relatively stable. A fundamental improvement in play might bump a player over 50% for a period of time, while a long period without practice might bump a player below 50%.
I know a lot of people already know this, or think they know this, but I hear people say that they are being paired vs really good players who they can't beat just because they got a win streak a few games ago.
A long winning (or losing) streak will definitely have a visible impact on the quality of players you're facing, because that streak will cause your MMR to take an excursion away from its starting value. The matchmaking system may not explicitly examine your recent game history as such when doing its thing, but the MMR number includes that historical information inherently.
Also many more people say that your win loss ratio below masters is meaningless since it's always going to be around 50%, this is not true; if you are improving faster than the other players at your skill level then you will get a slightly higher than 50% win ratio, when that ratio gets high enough then the system promotes you (not based on your ratio, it's just how the numbers work). This is why blizz can release a chart of how many points you need to be promoted, because if your ratio is high enough you will start getting more points than your losing and reach a point where you are playing players that are a higher level then you.
If a player is improving fast enough (or getting worse at fast enough) they'll see a win/loss that's not 50%. However, it IS possible for one's MMR to move while retaining a long-term 50% win/loss ratio depending on their actual opponents and how the games go. For example, if someone's improving and gets paired against a series of increasingly better players, versus whom they go 50/50, they'll tend to gain more points than they lose until their MMR stabilizes. On average, one would normally expect an improving player's ratio to be better than 50%, but it need not be in any specific case, and it wouldn't take much more than a 50% win ratio to have a steadily increasing MMR.
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On February 15 2012 03:38 Gheed wrote:
Nobody cares if the MMR makes AT vs RT "even," they care about the horrible games it produces.
If the likelihood of each team to win is 50/50, what is it that makes the games horrible? Not disputing your assessment, I just can't think of why that would particularly be the case.
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Did you notice that the OP linked to that post? I interpreted this thread to be intended to clear up certain misconceptions, though I agree, there wasn't that much new here.
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MMR is not skill but its as close as you can get to measuring skill.
Mmr measures your performance, and while better skill does not have to lead to a better performance, there is a strong correlation.
MMR , or rather the elo as displayed on the elo lists for top players,basicly expresses a statistical change (a change derived from statistics, instead of calculation the odds directly like with dice sequences)
if both are equal MMR the statistical change to win is 50%.
If mmr works the same as elo, a difference of 700 MMR would translate to a 100% change of winning.
I dont see anny reason for you bashing the mmr, its the best possible number to measure relative skill
People just need to understand where the number comes from and what it is exactly.
We should be able to see our mmr since then we can see how good our results are compared to other players wich is impossible atm
If some john doe manages to get 2600 elo at the ladder while all pros hoover at 2500 then john doe is better then thoose pros and has results to proove it
What are you all afraid of that will happen when displaying the mmr?
That it will show pros only score marginally better results then master players or something else?
That unknown players go brag with high elos?
Well if they have that elo they have the right to brag. You dont get the elo for free, you actually have to win.
there realy is no reason to be afraid of mmr and have not seen one good argument against it.
sry but this mmr fear is the for me most frustrating part of sc.
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On February 15 2012 10:42 Rassy wrote:
If mmr works the same as elo, a difference of 700 MMR would translate to a 100% change of winning.
It does not, though the principle is the same.
What are you all afraid of that will happen when displaying the mmr?
Blizzard's reasoning for not showing the MMR is that it's noisy and doesn't change much for most players over the long run. Their concern is that it would be a disincentive for playing for most players.
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EPT
