Quote Originally Posted by Iyrnwaen View Post
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.

Quote Originally Posted by Iyrnwaen View Post
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.