you have a warped view of how the MMR/SR systems function

essentially all that matters is your win-rate, if you can win more than 50% of your games over a reasonable stretch of time your MMR will increase and your SR will follow it

performance based SR is only a very small bonus (up-to diamond)

initial placement is essentially a guess: over 25 or so games your MMR will converge to where you're supposed to be

(4200 support main)

I don’t think I have a warped view of SR. Yes the idea that you win more than 50%, you’ll eventually get there is flawed. Especially in lower ranks where there’s an overcrowding of salty folks who leave, throw, smurf, pick heroes not based on need and just straight up don’t play the objective. I agree that the logic works at higher ranks, but it simply doesn’t at lower ranks. Performance based SR is important for lower ranks and that’s something that straight up gets ignored. It’s especially brutal because there’s no way to reset your SR (it carries over from season to season) except creating a new account and losing all the progress from thousands of hours of playing.

I find the competitive in OW especially bad considering other games like Apex really do it well. There is simply no excuse to ignore all of these problems. I’ve literally had games where 5 of my teammates quit, and I sit through it because I’ll lose SR to only find that I lost more SR by sticking around. It’s inexcusable.

Even in lower ELOs each team should have, on average, the same amount of trolls, leavers, etc. Actually, if you can guarantee that you aren't one of those people, then there are X slots on the enemy team that might be a joker and X-1 slots on your team, so the odds should favor you.

I'm unsure of the intricacies of Overwatch's rating system, but the problem I've noticed in most rating systems is that players don't play enough games for the rankings to stabilize. You end up with a situation where a very large amount of players end up close in ratings, where only a few wins or losses can propel them way higher or way lower.

This might not be a big deal, but the game isn't static. It changes, which means that the skills someone picks up might not be as useful in the next patch anymore. This keeps the rankings somewhat unstable.

Team games inherently require more games to stabilize a rating too. You can get lucky or unlucky with your teammates. On top of that, a game where you can end up with a character you're not strong with probably increases the number of games to stabilize a rating even further.

On average it might work out, but are enough games played to actually reach that? My guess is that for most players the answer is 'no'.

This is anecdotal, but when I host my buddy at my place (he is high diamond on all roles) sometimes he'll hop on my account (low silver on all roles) and steamroll. I'd say 3-5 wins per loss, and he tends to stay off his mains. Yes bad games happen, but he consistently will leave my account at a higher SR than when he arrived (please don't ban me Blizzard). I am pretty confident a diamond level player could boost a bronze account in any role without much trouble.

I recall ster making a new account, sandbagging all of his placement matches to land in mid Bronze, and then reaching Diamond in 6 hours. [1] I think it took him another week to make it back to Grandmaster. Granted, this was in Season 2 and I quit around Season 4, so I have no clue if they made any changes that would affect rank gain much.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaORwv8dkt0

there used to be different mechanics like a win streak modifier, which are gone now

but if you have a high win rate you climb more or less immediately (once you've unstuck the MMR confidence value)

I get that, but I played maybe 200-300 hours of OW as dva and for some reason couldn't get out of silver. Nothing I did worked.

Ended up creating a new account, ended up in high plat and quickly became diamond, never to drop lower again.

Why/how did this happen? I'm not sure, but ELO hell was real for me.

(Dva main)

different elos require different playstyles

as a 4k support main I found qp games with silver friends extremely frustrating due to the extreme chaos and lack of structure (normally devolving to team deathmatch)

the tanks don't know what they're doing (e.g. rein charging on cooldown, sniper dva feeding, etc)

the DPS don't know what they're doing (mccree going for cheeky flanks and dying most of the time/getting a single pick)

the other support doesn't know what they're doing (wandering off alone to duel people)

adjusting your playstyle works, so as a support you become super aggressive, the enemy makes near constant mistakes and you pounce on them immediately

vs. a GM game where everyone knows what their role is and the game plays much more "normally", and I can't get away with that sort of behaviour

you also have a warped understanding of SR and climbing. >50% winrate doesn't guarantee climbing, because SR change is not constant and depends in your chance to win in every particular match. The better you play the lower SR reward (because your chance to win is higher). That's exactly why elo hell exists and that's exactly why purchasing a new account allows you to climb instantly. And the last fact is the reason why nobody will change this flawed system.

I understand the system perfectly

true: SR change isn't constant, delta SR after a game is based on the difference between your MMR and SR

SR is essentially irrelevant, MMR is the only number that matters

your SR oscillates around your MMR, essentially at random

MMR also has a confidence value, "elo hell" is where you can't win enough to unstick the confidence value

if you win more than 50% consistently the confidence value will drop, your MMR will increase, then your SR will follow it

a new account has a zero value for the confidence, which is why the MMR (and SR that follows it) is more volatile, at least to begin with

"then your SR will follow it" is a wrong assumption. SR will only increase if you win. And while MMR increases, you receive fewer and fewer SR points per win.