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I've thought MMR through a fair bit and wanted to put all my thoughts in one place to refer others to if the topic arises. There's so many reasons people shouldn't care about their MMR that I would really enjoy not explaining this multiple times, heh.
- You're literally not supposed to care:
You have to go out of your way to friend request a bot and type a command to it in chat, or make in-game alterations to appear on an MMR list outside of the game; the rating is not listed anywhere publicly by the developers (that I know of). Level, mech, kills, deaths, assists, damage output, damage sustained, etc. is all right in front of you, but MMR is nowhere to be seen. Literally, you're just not supposed to care about it. It's supposed to be a way to get similarly talented players in lobbies together to create a more consistently fun experience. That's it. Just so that Mr. Veteran doesn't land in a lobby with Mr. Tries To Back-Boost But Does A 180 Instead.
- It can make your Hawken experience worse:
-- Stress: You might be the type of player who really enjoys working to improve your skill level- you can end up checking your MMR as often as possible and worrying about a decrease even when in some cases it's essentially entirely out of your control. This may end up making Hawken more stressful than fun.
-- Stunted growth: You may end up so concerned about MMR that you make overly defensive decisions to protect yourself, playing with abnormal apprehensions and an abnormal lack of confidence; even if you avoid that folly, you may be considerably less likely to take risks and work on your weaknesses- stunting your growth as a player.
- It isn't sufficiently indicative of skill level:
-- Smurf accounts (NOT alternate accounts)*: Need I really explain this? In some cases, smurf accounts can cause other players to be punished rather than rewarded for their performance, but in all cases no matter what, the presence of a smurf in a lobby will result in other players' MMR increases being lowered abnormally.
-- Current MMR spread and population: This is one not everyone seems to realize. The MMR system performance correlates with population- the more players there are, the more accurate MMR is. Not only is this the case, but after population expansion and shrinkage have occurred, the system does not return to an equally effective state. The current spread of MMR is stagnant; players have established themselves as significant functions in the dynamics of MMR, but are not actively participating in the system which is still very much trying to function. Imagine MMR was reset right now; it would be more accurate, wouldn't it? At least temporarily, before the same stretching, skewing, and stagnation occurs again due to low population.
-- The algorithm itself: Using the Technician mech will garner more points with less skill (well accepted fact, coupled with a direct quote from a player remaining unnamed: "...a techzerker account, for fun and for the purpose of achieving high MMR without skill..."). If there is a Tech on the team, the distribution of total points earned by the team is logically off. But that's not the only issue here; did you think Hawken perfectly distributes points in the absence of a Tech? Of course not. MMR calculation doesn't take into account massively important variables, such as ping (IT DOESN'T TAKE INTO ACCOUNT PING???), and how long you've been in the server- that's right, join late, get no points as the game ends, MMR plummets (Reference A). MMR simply cannot distinguish the skill level of a player- this is why hugely competitive games like CS:GO only alter rank according to one singular variable: win/loss. Hawken attempts to take into account multiple variables (which I think actually works pretty well, with the exception of the Tech issue), but it's unbelievably far from all possible variables distinguishing talent (essentially impossible to do in our lifetime).
In short:
Unnecessary stress, smurfs, a broken system, tiny population- what could possibly be rational about caring about MMR? Just enjoy the game!
Feel free to discuss, I'll add anything I'm missing.
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*smurf:
"A (usually) experienced gamer posing as a newbie under an alternate name."
This is what I refer to when I say 'smurf'. In my eyes, it doesn't make sense for 'smurf' to be a synonym for 'alternate account'. A smurf's MMR is not representative of his/her skill level, while an alternate account's MMR is.
Reference A:
Just got online and played two games; one I joined extremely late with good players and had no chance to catch up, the other was a full game with random people and I ended up finishing ~500 points above the closest person. After logging on and playing those two games, I lost ~10 MMR points.
Anecdotal evidence:
- On MMR evaluation failure: [Reference A]
- On MMR evaluation failure: "...a techzerker account, for fun and for the purpose of achieving high MMR without skill..."
- On MMR update frequency: On multiple occasions, after multi-day absence, I've logged in, checked MMR, completed one match, and checked it again- seeing it had changed. I believe MMR is updated immediately after a completed match, or at least before the completion of another match; the latter essentially must be the case for MMR to function at all.
- On MMR evaluation failure: 2 matches played in one session; match #1 felt rough, like I did less than I could have and was lower on the board than I should have been for my standards, against average names- MMR increased 8 points; match #2 felt great, was proud, performed well enough (not top of the board) against bigger names- MMR dropped 16 points. One of the more baffling events.
- On stunted growth: When overly concerned with MMR results, I pressure myself into shooting for the most points possible, causing myself to YOLO-dive more than usual (wait that's even possible?).
- On MMR evaluation failure: One match played in one session; top of the scoreboard server-wide, lost 8 MMR.
Final note:
To be honest, MMR does inherently hold SOME weight (with a greater population, it would indeed partition the player-base so that vets aren't playing with noobs, etc.), but given the stagnant spread of MMR, smurfs, and tiny population...well, at this very moment, MMR is just vaguely meaningful at best. I'd passionately argue that a 100 MMR gap between two players around 2000 is essentially meaningless right now- and that gap of meaninglessness exists at any level, increasing with MMR.
Edited by CoshCaust, 17 March 2016 - 10:11 PM.
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