Gavin (BlizzWinter) Interview: The Man Behind the Challenger Score

[00:02] >> Okay. This is Gavin aka Blizz Winter. Okay. And I'm going to ask you some answer. Now, what is your role on the Overwatch team? What do you do? >> System design. So, that means the first thing I did on Overwatch was I uh

[00:16] went from there. So, I've done things like I was the designer for competitive for Hero Bands. I was the designer for map voting. And most recently, the thing >> Yes. Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. So, let's just like from the

[00:32] this season, season 20, the ones out currently, they added a new system. So, in previous seasons, you had top 500, which was like the 500 best like players like BSR, you know, the guy who's like champ one would be top one and the guy

[00:46] you'd go on and on. But this season, the current season, season 20, right, which is gonna end soon, thank God. Uh they added a challenger system which replaced top 500 where the more games you play,

[01:00] uh the higher you are basically like if you are diamond or masters or GM, if you just play the game enough, you will like I'm currently diamond three >> and I was higher ranked for a while, but >> I got top 500 and I've never fallen out

[01:13] are hundreds if not thousands of GM enchant players and I'm way higher ranked than them. I believe the rank one player right now, last time it was Silvox, I think, and he's Mast's one. So, how can you explain how a Masters

[01:27] One player is rank one on the DPS leaderboard? valuing time played too much, right? Like it's just that's the problem, >> How did you guys ar like why did you guys want to make challenger in the

[01:41] >> Um, there were a few goals. So, one of the reasons was that we saw that it was very common to camp for leaderboards. It was really easy to do. Yes. Uh 25 wins >> Yeah. No, it used to be 50. It became 25. Some people have like five 10

[01:54] >> Exactly. Exactly. And so that's kind of a curse problem in and of itself. The that like requirement that we had because the higher we make it, >> you know, uh the longer it extends out that like beginning of season push when

[02:06] season? >> I'm sorry. Yeah. So if we do like games to be on top 500 then like there would be no top 500 for weeks maybe. always been fraudulent though. >> Sure. That's true. That's true. It's

[02:21] you're competing if you have a high number. You know what I'm saying? Because you don't know where everybody is. So we lowered it to try to like make that early season push feel more fun. Like feel like like within a week that

[02:33] mean just days actually, right? Yeah. That somebody was like on it and competing. So that's that's why we kept lowering it to answer that question. Um effect the negative side effect of meaning that it was really easy to just

[02:48] >> Yeah. >> And Yeah. And so that felt really bad. Um uh for a lot of players and it also just it actually literally encouraged >> Yeah. Exactly. Right. Cuz then it was like more prestigious if there's 10 of

[03:02] >> Yeah. Yeah. I think I think Derby was at some point. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And so what that does is that actually which some people are going to keep doing that anyway, like that doesn't

[03:16] smurfs. It just like disincentivizes it a little bit. Yeah. But like um so those were created over and over and over because the leaderboard was very smart wanted to change that because we felt like that

[03:31] failure in Taco. We were like hurting the legit players by asking them to play against kind of a non-stop like cavalcade of smurfs, you know, and so that was that that made the experience bad for those people that weren't

[03:46] like a big part of the reason why we did it, why we why we decided to introduce like a time played element to it, you know, and we definitely went way too far >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And also like Okay, so here's I

[04:01] think the the worst part of it. So my rig fluctuates a lot, right? Like I I'll be maybe low low GM and then next week I'll be diamond, right? And so I was getting into lobbies with champ two players and if I win that game I get 400

[04:13] next game I'll queue into because I'm a masters one player that will have a offense to the diamond bum. I'm also diamond. I'm a bum. Okay. Diamond bums. >> Yep. >> Yep.

[04:27] was my idea. Um I shouldn't have done that. Um sorry about that. painful to uh to lose? >> What what I was thinking with the give the well not to lose. Um, what I was thinking with the give it give the score

[04:40] that I was thinking I was trying to create these big moments for the players >> It felt great to be like a champ player to get 400 R. For sure. >> Um, right. And and so what what it was trying to do was like it felt like you

[04:54] game because someone who was a lot better than you in the game, but also because you stand a lot to gain. Yes. >> Um, and so I do think it achieved that leaderboard seem fraudulent. You're right. Yeah, that's a that's fair.

[05:06] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that and so that was definitely not a good idea. And that problem almost immediately. We realized like, yeah, we should not have done that. And I I I take full credit for that. That was my idea. I am sorry about

[05:18] work that way. >> We're going to change it. Are you going >> We're going to change it. Are you going to score the whole top 500 thing or not challenger. >> Oh, so we're keeping challenger in the

[05:30] fix it. >> Okay. Can you give any insights on like We'll just talk about things we are changing. How about that? So, um we we are uh removing that rule that said that you get score based off the highest one

[05:44] >> No, you're not. You're getting diamond score, which actually speaking of >> No challenger score. >> No challenger score for diamond. >> Uh no, sorry. I meant for diamond the rank specifically masters players can't

[05:57] >> That's right. >> So, but can Silvox still be rank one in >> Theoretically, but very unlikely. The reason the reason that he's able to do described, which is that he plays a lot and he's getting basically champion

[06:11] players are piñatas for him right now when they when they lose to him, they do. Yes, they do. And that won't be the case cuz we're changing that rule. So, score. >> And so, you see, so he'll be getting

[06:23] score based on what his actual rank is. >> Are you still going to lose one/3? Uh, >> Oh, really? Okay. See, my my concern with that, right, is there's like this meme of like this is what like 50,000 games looks like at 51% win rate. I got

[06:37] 50/50 win rate. >> If you gain more than you lose consistently, is it still not just heavily rewarding play time? more than it did in the past. >> Why?

[06:49] seasonl long race. We want it to feel like this competition that you're continually fighting to be at the top of. And so we don't want it to feel like that you can step away for a long period of time and still be in contention.

[07:02] that someone in my chat is pointing out. They're saying that it's kind of hard to is the thing like a lot of very good players struggle with if you have like a champ to account. You don't get to play the game like your queue is like super

[07:14] >> Don't you think there's still going to be a ton of Masters players? Again, this like that lobby I'm talking about like a champ player. If I'm Masters, I'm Everyone else in that lobby waited 30 minutes. That's true.

[07:26] lobbies in the time that they get one. >> So, what we did this in 2001 as well is we rebalanced the scores again and we gave challenger or sorry, champion even >> Did you lower the uh the other ones like Masters and stuff?

[07:39] is a little lower, I think, but like it's it's it's similar to where it was, but champion is just way higher than it was. Way way higher. Okay. So, we So, what we did is we looked at the Q times. The in truth right now the average

[07:52] champion queue that they do not cancel. So not counting ones that they cancel minutes >> and that happens a lot. I watch a lot of call it. >> Yeah it does.

[08:05] >> Well outlers what do we count as an outlier here? Anybody above champ 3? like a bad outliers in terms of time. Okay. In terms of time do do you not champ players right now? >> It definitely is. Yeah. No doubt about

[08:17] worst case scenario for a champ player tends to be like 30 minutes, which is really bad, right? Yeah. >> Um, and so what we did was we tried to that's why the score is so much higher. >> Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So

[08:31] you're saying that if a champ player plays every week, [laughter] >> I believe. So yeah, I think we're going to find any masters players in top 500 >> I think it's possible, but I I think it's unlikely.

[08:44] think was going to happen this time? Did you think it was possible? But unlikely >> Yep. >> Okay. I mean, we gota, you know, you got do you guys have any any questions? I think I think we've like milked the top

[08:57] interested in. I'm really I'm sure it's been hard for you because I know I have been like very vocally anti >> Oh, yeah. No, unemployment. That's what do with like your

[09:10] >> That's fair. It's It was a pretty big mistake on my part. Um, and I feel bad >> Well, it's nice you guys are going to correct it in one season though, you know. Very this is very unoverwatch honestly. Like I think we're used to

[09:23] like extremely bad stuff for like two years, you know. Uh, so it's nice that modifiers. >> What's the point of giving master score that leaderboards have different amounts of players. So the reason we were still

[09:37] console Asia exists. >> Yes. So basically in Asia it's not super common to play on consoles but every region has both a PC and a console leaderboard and so like even in the console Asia leaderboard we did still

[09:52] >> Interesting. >> Even top 500 I mean not in challenger like in the original top 500 system. So the reason we do that is because some leaderboards are much less populated than others and we just want to try to

[10:04] make sure those leaderboards are mostly populated. um that we may see something get 500 people, you know, on the leaderboard. That's very po. I mean, >> If that happens, if you get sub 500 people on the top 500 leaderboard,

[10:17] >> I don't think so. If it's a really underpop populated region, 100? >> We're not considering it right now, but >> yeah, >> I won't say anything.

[10:30] I was with a lot of pro players last night and they brought this up too, right? In Overwatch one, there's this thing called a decay where let's say Uh you're 4,400. If you don't play the game for a while, your rank naturally

[10:43] goes down. And I know that right now you guys have MMR and rank combined into one linked at the hip. >> Okay. So, in Overwatch one, you could be but you could decay all the way down to

[10:56] >> And so that decay was like a fake visual thing. that was your rank, but really your MMR behind the scenes wasn't changed in that >> Okay. Have you guys considered or are you interested in readding rank decay or

[11:10] >> Well, that that's actually what I was just talking about with Pho for a while. The So, the question is the we we accept different downsides when we do that. So, if we do that, then we either, you know, keep them linked and we decay both of

[11:25] for like, it's actually kind of worse than a rank reset for like high skill >> Yeah. Cuz you have to play 50 games to get your normal rank back. changing your MMR if they were linked, right? Like, so if it was that today,

[11:37] then we'd be really we would be like kind of ruining highlevel games because we would be saying everybody above, you know, 3900 or whatever is the same rank literally like Exactly. And so that's that's not something we

[11:49] want to do because it would kind of ruin matchmaking for those players for a kind of be the same and then they'd have to sort out again and it would cause a you know there were a lot of there were a lot of SR numbers above 3900. Right.

[12:03] [laughter] >> So, um, that's not great. Um, could we it again? We could, but then we'd have to rebuild what we did in season 9. Part of what we did in back in the the distant past when we were Overwatch 2,

[12:16] uh, season 9, we did this thing where we made it so that rank and MMOR were converged completely. Yeah. >> And we'd have to undo that work. >> Okay. On the topic of like rank changes. Okay. I'm very interested. Why do you

[12:29] gain 30 SR per win now and lose 30 per win? Why is it so dramatic? Oh. Um, we did that because we didn't feel like that people were like when someone got didn't feel like that their rank

[12:42] thought that the system was just too slow and not responding to human undergo when they make a genuine skill improvement. Um, so basically we just making matchmaking a little worse we thought because um if it doesn't adjust

[12:58] um punching down sometimes if you >> Yeah. So, that's why. >> Okay. Uh Oh, okay. Somebody I'm just Somebody asked uh Okay. In Bel launcher, you should be able to click like the

[13:12] server. So, if I'm like NA, I can just play in Korea on purpose for some back to the game? >> Well, that's not part of the game Battleet Launcher. And so, it's a service that Battleet's not supporting

[13:25] we don't have the ability to make that on Battleet. Like, we only make Overwatch. Um, so I think that's very cool and I would love to bring it back. >> But it's not up to us. >> Okay. Question. Do you do any hero like

[13:38] with uh numbers getting >> tweaked? I'm not. But I can I can be a budget hero person because I did do the advanced info panel for uh this season. I can't like explain why we did things and I can't if you're asking me to nerf

[13:52] >> Yeah. Okay. Oh, chat. Any questions about like buffs or whatever? We will be to the ground, right? And it might not seem like it, but like she got put in. I floorboards. I I didn't think >> Oh, you mean in the past or now?

[14:05] >> Current patch. Tracer is weaker. >> You know, they've gone from five to six to five to six to six. And now it's 5.75, which sucks. Or 5.5. You know what Tracer guys, we will talk about it. Okay. Don't worry. You ask if they would

[14:19] Some high ranked players want to know in the chat if there's any like avenue for high ranked players to like give uh feedback or whatever. Uh um I mean we some degree. >> Haha. Cypress, you need to be in, bro.

[14:33] >> Um we have that with the creator program, you know, that's something Megan runs actually. Yeah. Um so we take a lot of feedback from that, but in surveys sometimes and some sometimes those do target high level players, but

[14:46] it just depends. I don't I don't have a good answer for that one. Um it's kind of >> it's not exactly in my realm. Apologies. Yep. >> Two seasons ago, or maybe it was last

[14:58] season, it became much easier to reach champion, right? People were getting you off placements. It was ridiculous. Uh do you feel that there's an appropriate >> We're actually really happy with it, which is why we're not changing the rank

[15:11] so season 18 was the softest rank reset we'd ever done. >> Okay. >> Um and we thought that rank resets in were changing people's ranks too much. um they cause disruption, right? So like

[15:26] reset is that like you can change your fate and that's true. You can you can has a lot to do with the fact that the game has changed, right? So like when they're going to be playing five new heroes and they don't know how to play

[15:40] are going to get a lower rank because they're going to kind of suck at that you know, a Doom one trick that's been playing for like 10 years, right? >> yeah, I think it's one over there. >> No, that's what I was looking at. But

[15:52] get their rank stolen a little bit but anyway there's a reason why we are ranked resetting you know uh when we do big changes. Um so yeah does that answer the question? >> I my my questions are so answered. I'm

[16:07] too much more of your time. Okay chat everyone let's send some hearts. Let's the questions. I I just like hard uh and like a little bit like like mean or >> No that's fine. We we we want to hear, you know, especially when we make a

[16:19] mistake, you know, like Challenger definitely had some mistakes in it and >> Really nice to see you guys like not keep the same mistake for two years. I know there are a lot of people who just, you know, were around like for goats and

[16:31] like a very long time, >> right? There is some PTSD about that. >> Oh, all right. I have to ask. >> Yeah. >> Will you ever even consider bringing SR back? like just the normal like ranking

[16:44] system, not like champ 5, not just 45. It was so clean and I miss it. Everybody >> I actually don't think everybody misses it, but I don't have I'm not really strongly against bringing it back. So, the nuance there for me is that just so

[16:58] Overwatch one players. >> Oh, but I believe that actually I have a game for the first time like season five or something. It's really crazy, it, those people can't miss it. They never saw that. But but um to your point

[17:13] wrong with SR as long as it's something you see that other people don't see. So >> you don't want them to see it. >> Well, I don't I think that like so the in the first place was that let's say you have someone that's like

[17:27] >> Yeah. >> And so what what was the unfortunate as like an absolute truth. Yes. the ranks are an estimate. They're a best estimate. They're not perfect, you

[17:40] know. Uh sometimes people get a lucky streak and they gain like a whole >> right? >> And then they like maybe 100 SR higher than is accurate. But when people see that 4,000 versus 4,0001,

[17:54] objectively better. >> I mean, yeah, but what's the difference like earlier watch >> the difference is 100 SR. >> Well, no. Okay. [laughter] Yeah, but listen. If you have like a

[18:06] that he has a diamond tube, he's still going to think that the diamond is like heel. >> That's true. that in the game today, right? >> Yeah. If we do Exactly. So, why not just

[18:20] read SR? Like, what? Okay, be honest. Be really honest with me. Did you guys only do like Masters 5, Masters 4, whatever? And the system and like you have to win that because Overwatch 2 was coming out and you had to have something new? No,

[18:33] >> Oh, really? >> It Yeah, really. Yeah, it was. It was because we didn't want people to think about each other as a specific number. cases that you talk about. >> They do. No, nobody is stop. I think I

[18:46] >> They do. No, nobody is stop. I think I think it happens in every ELO. Plag, but imagine that you're you are gold, which is like average, right? And so, yeah. So if if you're there and then everybody is like you know um like 2350

[19:03] let's say like 2350 SR >> then because gold is like so many people um then we we'll have a game where everybody is like near that 2350 number. all in the same division a lot of the time. And so like that's where the

[19:17] majority of players who look at that like 2353 versus 2352 and they're like number >> we think so really. Yeah. >> Um now I will speak to that a little bit and say that was I I joined in at the

[19:32] very end of Overwatch one so the very end. Um and so this system was the the the new ranks and tiers were already in development before I worked on the team. >> So it's not your fault. >> Well I'm saying that

[19:44] >> he's innocent. No, I'm I'm I'll take credit because I didn't think they were told me what people were doing and what the research [laughter] fine. It's okay. >> I maybe I am wrong. But um but but when

[19:56] they showed us the the research they' done and talked about it, it it seemed that that's probably the case. I think people I mean I played a lot of ranked >> Do you play a lot of rank? Do people know? Are you called Blizz no?

[20:09] >> Never. Never once. >> Okay. Well, thank you so much for your up by like 200 when you were here. Like, [laughter] I'm not kidding. So, I really appreciate it. Uh, cool, man. Thank you.

[20:21] And, uh, yeah, sorry for the challenger stuff, but I do think we will fix it. I >> I believe in you. Where did Costa go? All right, sounds good. All right, chat. We're going to get Kusta and we're going to ask him why the he nerfed

[20:34] Tracer. Okay, we all know why. We all know why Kusta's I bet I bet that shit's his fault, bro. I bet it's his fault. How you feeling about everything? I feel pointed out like really well that uh like these games like nobody knows what

[20:47] understand that I'm not doing a lot of gameplay and I'm doing a lot of interviewing, but uh I'm coming at this from like the angle of like while I like understanding of the game in terms of like balance or like what makes a

[20:59] unbroken is above average. But for the environment, I think that I can bring to can't, which is like I'm willing to just sit on my ass and like interview people she's here. [gasps] You're green. Yeah. Come here.

[21:16] >> That's Ren. >> Ren. Is that they them or she her? >> Okay. >> Sorry. I Because the hair is green. >> Sorry. I Because the hair is green. Yeah.