Unranked to Diamond in 7 hours

[Iyrnwaen]

After every 3 game win streak, I would get matched with hopeless teams. I always try my best, but I now firmly believe SE wants to break your streak.

Sounds like confirmation bias to me. The last character i ranked to Crystal rode a win streak straight through Plat without interruption.
Folks have been complaining about the matchmaker artificially forcing losses on them to curb their win rate for as long as PvP games have had matchmakers.

I understand the frustration with getting CC locked, but the alternative would be cutting way back on job mobility and survivability, and I think that would be much worse.
Attrition models for PvP tend to be boring as hell, and aren't really suited to this high octane short round format.

[zeth07]

That just sounds like random luck to me. I doubt they're deliberately engineering teams to that extent.

Sounds like confirmation bias to me. The last character i ranked to Crystal rode a win streak straight through Plat without interruption.
Folks have been complaining about the matchmaker artificially forcing losses on them to curb their win rate for as long as PvP games have had matchmakers.

I understand the frustration with getting CC locked, but the alternative would be cutting way back on job mobility and survivability, and I think that would be much worse.
Attrition models for PvP tend to be boring as hell, and aren't really suited to this high octane short round format.

I'm not saying FFXIV devs would care enough to set up some elaborate matchmaking for their PvP, but there have been studies done on matchmaking and I'm sure some game devs out there have implemented those exact kind of systems where random isn't true random in regards to matchmaking meaning it is potentially rigged under specific circumstances.

See the EOMM study.

This is entirely possible because they implemented a Streak Bonus mechanic. So they could see that a player is streaking and purposefully try and throw them into a harder match.

Even speaking from my own experience I felt like I had the exact situation happen to me. I won 5 straight matches getting to Silver 1 and on my promotion match into Gold they put me against Gold+Platinum players, opponents and teammates, even though I was still Silver technically.

I ended up losing, and from that ended up losing my next 5 out of 6 matches. The whole time leading up to that I've never seen Platinum players during Silver, because it should be Bronze - Silver - Gold.

One of the examples in the study showed that people who Lose 3 straight matches are more likely to quit. So in that same regard if you hit a losing streak they should in theory try and give you an easier chance to win.

Again I don't know if FFXIV devs wanted to put that much effort into matchmaking but it's not impossible that there are other factors being accounted for.

Reference:
http://web.cs.ucla.edu/~yzsun/papers/WWW17Chen_EOMM

[Iyrnwaen]

This is entirely possible because they implemented a Streak Bonus mechanic. So they could see that a player is streaking and purposefully try and throw them into a harder match.

You don't think it's a bit silly to suggest they implemented a streak bonus to make it possible to rank up with a win rate under 50%,
and then undermined that very system by artificially torpedoing your matches if you get a streak? Wouldn't you just... like... not implement the streak bonus in the first place?

Even speaking from my own experience I felt like I had the exact situation happen to me. I won 5 straight matches getting to Silver 1 and on my promotion match into Gold they put me against Gold+Platinum players, opponents and teammates, even though I was still Silver technically.

I ended up losing, and from that ended up losing my next 5 out of 6 matches. The whole time leading up to that I've never seen Platinum players during Silver, because it should be Bronze - Silver - Gold.

This is how you would expect a functional matchmaker to work.
If you're playing at your skill level, you should expect a win rate of very close to 50%. An even match should be a coin toss.
Let's say for simplicity that you're at 1k MMR and you go up or down 100 MMR depending on whether you win or lose.
If you were to perfectly alternate wins and losses, something that's statistically virtually impossible, your MMR would effectively never change.
Instead, you get something like your example, where you win 5 matches in a row and your MMR skyrockets.
It's now a full 50% higher than it was 5 matches ago, and the matchmaker is appropriately going to start putting you in matches with players in that MMR band.
Either you'll win those matches too and continue to climb until you reach another plateau where your MMR stabilizes,
or you'll lose until your MMR falls back to its previous equilibrium- and while it's unlikely for those losses to all come in an uninterrupted streak, it's certainly possible.

[zeth07]

You don't think it's a bit silly to suggest they implemented a streak bonus to make it possible to rank up with a win rate under 50%,
and then undermined that very system by artificially torpedoing your matches if you get a streak? Wouldn't you just... like... not implement the streak bonus in the first place?

Because getting a win streak FEELS good and it's like a dopamine hit, and you're visually seeing it happening. Compared to the opposite, where if it was rigged against you, that is hidden, that 1 loss to shut you down is just bringing you back down to earth and you don't even have to know it's happening on purpose (whether it is or not.) Which then leads to another potential winstreak and feeling good again. Rinse and repeat on a cycle.

This is how you would expect a functional matchmaker to work.
If you're playing at your skill level, you should expect a win rate of very close to 50%. An even match should be a coin toss.
Let's say for simplicity that you're at 1k MMR and you go up or down 100 MMR depending on whether you win or lose.
If you were to perfectly alternate wins and losses, something that's statistically virtually impossible, your MMR would effectively never change.
Instead, you get something like your example, where you win 5 matches in a row and your MMR skyrockets.
It's now a full 50% higher than it was 5 matches ago, and the matchmaker is appropriately going to start putting you in matches with players in that MMR band.
Either you'll win those matches too and continue to climb until you reach another plateau where your MMR stabilizes,
or you'll lose until your MMR falls back to its previous equilibrium- and while it's unlikely for those losses to all come in an uninterrupted streak, it's certainly possible.

In terms of this game who knows. If there is a hidden MMR that just makes it more likely other things are taken into consideration. As is you would just think it works on the rank system already established. You should only see people one rank above or below you. The fact that I saw Platinum while I was at Silver tells me there's more to it than that.

You could also consider that good matching should try and keep everyone at 50%, but of course even the best players have to start lower and the win streaks can help boost them faster to their spot. But at the same time 50/50 back and forths probably don't feel rewarding to the player. So they could try and let people purposefully get to win streaks to feel good before shutting them down.

It is all very convoluted, but some devs would truly do anything to try and find the most engaging systems possible to keep people going.

[Cabel]

I get what you're saying but the skepticism isn't about holding anyone back, just nabbing more playtime on their way to crystal.

For what it's worth, streaks seem to be a loss sentence for myself as well. Even if my performance,/stats hardly vary.

[ReiganCross]

You don't think it's a bit silly to suggest they implemented a streak bonus to make it possible to rank up with a win rate under 50%,
and then undermined that very system by artificially torpedoing your matches if you get a streak? Wouldn't you just... like... not implement the streak bonus in the first place?

Other way around. BECAUSE you can win-streak they can torpedo your win-streak and still expect you to climb under a 50% winrate. If you cut down on the win-streak that would mean making a 50% win-rate even more infuriating than it already is.

[Nav_Fae]

I'm not saying FFXIV devs would care enough to set up some elaborate matchmaking for their PvP, but there have been studies done on matchmaking and I'm sure some game devs out there have implemented those exact kind of systems where random isn't true random in regards to matchmaking meaning it is potentially rigged under specific circumstances.

Not to be a tin foil hatter but, Yoshi P did just recently confirm that the housing lotto system for starters isn't true random. We also know that the loot system isn't true random either. It's merely systems with a mathematical equation to appear random. If you could see in the code, you could manipulate these to your favor and there is evidence for it. Buried since it was years ago but does exist. The Match Maker probably isn't any different.