The developers are hoping this change helps people win, not just pad stats
Blizzard has been doing some overhaul to the competitive scene in recent updates. Just last week, the developers announced that performance-based SR would no longer exist in competitive Diamond rank and above — something that Blizzard felt the community had been requesting for quite some time. The performance-based SR was largely considered one of the reason one-tricks were such an issue in the game — players would lose or gain SR based on their own personal performance, not so much whether the team won or lost. This meant that players could play less popular heroes (and thus have a smaller pool to be compared with among players of any rank), which led them to experience inflated SR gains, fewer SR losses, and a more rapid rank climb.
Even worse, performance-based SR led to “stat padding,” i.e. making plays that were not in the best service of the team or to win the match, only to make the game client feel like you performed well even though your team lost, lessening your “SR punishment,” if you will. Some players would immediately consider a game a lost effort even after the first team fight, and would wind up “soft throwing” a match — or appearing to play without actually contributing anything to the team. The removal of performance-based SR at higher ranks might lessen this issue, while leaving it in lower ranks may help players who truly deserve to climb make their way up the ladder.
At high levels, this could be a very good thing for the competitive scene. Players would instead have more incentive to win at any cost, rather than lose in order to protect their own SR.
This does bring some problems to the table, however, as ultimately this decision takes away an individual’s own autonomy to control their game. Instead, a loss or win is entirely 5/6ths dependent on a player’s team mates. This may only foster further toxicity in the community, as now players have to relinquish control of their own rank to essential strangers to a much greater degree.
That being said, the issue with performance-based SR also assumes another statistic that is difficult to quantify — how many players are actually padding stats consciously, and how many players out of the whole were making the competitive experience worse for their team? One could argue that performance-based SR was only a scapegoat for a much greater as-yet-unnamed issue with the game. Throwers were just as likely to severely under-perform in order to force their team to lose, therefore hurting their SR more in the process, than “soft throw” and make it look like they were contributing even though they were not. So therefore, what is the main issue with competitive that causes players to feel negatively about their experience? Is it a lack of consequence for bad behavior, a lack of rewards for good behavior, or something else?
It remains to be seen how this change in upcoming Season 8, when it begins in January, will affect the ladder. For now, the best the competitive community can do is do what players should have been doing in the first place — play as a team, and play to win.
Image credits to Blizzard Entertainment
