You are making a lot of assumptions on how the system is working, when it's kind of working different. You have a lot of the right ideas, but I definitely want to talk about some of the things you are pointing out. This isn't meant to slam your thoughts, or to say "you're wrong" - I really want to explain how the system works. Your frustrated, the least I can do is explain why. I won't be able to solve your frustrations immediately, or maybe we won't be able to, but I think you deserve an explination.
rank is completely decorrelated from MMR. I've had to explain several times why I'm getting matched with plat players as a gold 1, since most people don't understand that visible rank has no link with your actual skill. always a fun moment, especially when you carry the match after this or when someone dodges based on that.
This is true, and not true. Mostly not true. After you play placements, we know the range where you might belong. If after your 5 placements, we think you belong somewhere between silver 1-Gold 3, we will place you on the lower end. That means your rank is technically still on the curve of where your MMR could fall. Your placements, and skill, determined your initial rank placement. So while you may be testing higher, technically you are still within the range of your MMR.
There are a few reasons for this. We may have overestimated your skill, so it's better to place you slightly lower. We would rather place you slightly lower, and give you increased RR gains, then place you above where you belong and just have you chain lose with increase RR losses. It's much healthier to let you test up, then to make you test down. A great way to think about this is learning/school in general. You never take tests on what you don't know, and fail them, you are tested on what you do know and prove it.
This leads into how Elo systems work. You need lots of games to find your true skill. Technically you need over 1000+ to find your true Elo in chess. That's a game that does not change, doesn't have new agents, or maps, or rule changes, etc. Because we won't ever have a static, non-changing game, we actually have to speed up and get more accurate in how to rate your skill. You may think, in a system that is "Just pure MMR" that it's more accurate but that isn't true. During your first few games, in any MMR system, you will have wildly crazy gains/losses. That's because the system needs you to play some games, in order to see where you stack against other players, and you will fall wherever you belong.
That's exactly what our system is doing. Instead of making you climb from 0, we are just setting your starting point on the low end of where we think you belong. Then in about 30 games you will, by force, converge with your MMR. You can't stop your rank matching your MMR. If you win, the boosted RR gains will push you to your MMR. If you lose, your MMR will drop and it will converge with your current rank. So while you are being tested early on, yes your Rank may not be where you are currently being tested. But it is still a reflection of your placements, you skill, and your initial seeding into a ranked system. Every ranked system is like this. No ranked system will tell you your rank in 5 matches. There just isn't a realistic algorithm to do so and we don't have enough matches to have a big enough sample size.
rank is entirely artificial to force a grind treadmill
This isn't true at all. Making an artificial grind isn't the goal, the goal of competitive queue is "To create a healthy and competitive space, where players can play against each other to find their true rank."
This is also counter to making a good game. If you make a fun, enjoyable game, people will play it. We don't need to create a fake grind, because we are trying to make a fun game. If we don't make a fun game people wouldn't want to grind it in the first place.
your MMR actually gets very stuck the longer you play (you call that "system confidence in your skill estimate", I think. it's not the positive thing you think it is.)
The confidence system isn't exactly what you think it is. There are two things that are technically "confidence". One is going to be your match sample size. The more matches you play, the more matches we have to know what your skill is. Technically that can be viewed as confidence, this is how Elo systems get a good idea of where you belong.
That being said, we have a different confidence system. Like I said above, there is a band we are "confident" you belong in after placements. Lets use that same example as above, you belong somewhere in Silver 1 - Gold 3. If you have a bad game, or a map you aren't confident on, we know you perform at about Silver 1. Alternatively, if you are having a really good game we think you could perform around Gold 3. This is the range at which we are confident in placing you in a match. As you play matches, that confidence changes, because we get more data and understand you better. So that band might shift, or shrink, and we will know what a "good match" and a "bad match" looks like from you.
So while it may seem like we are trying to make you "hard stuck" if you were to start performing out side of that confidence band, the system would flex and readjust. It would loosen its confidence and it would become much easier to climb and change your MMR, the systems confidence in you. You aren't hardstuck, we just get better at predicting your skill and you aren't performing above where we expect you to belong.
matchmaking is trying to give you a 50% winrate regardless of your skill
Match making isn't trying to give you a 50% winrate. Match making is trying to give you fair matches. There is no point in giving you an unfair match, it doesn't prove anything and is not beneficial to our goal "finding your true rank". If we put you in a match against silver, but you were gold, that would only prove you can stomp and beat silvers. It would not prove that you go can toe to toe with people actually in gold. This is the age old argument that "Skill based match making is sweaty" - which is true. You are playing competitive to have the most fair, competitive match making, we can offer. We are going to try and put you in matches that give you a 50% chance to win, which in turn will most likely result in you having a 50% win rate. We aren't trying to give you a 50% win rate, again our goal is finding your true rank and creating fair match making.
matchmaking ignores your client language and willingness to communicate entirely to match you AS FAST AS POSSIBLE with who's available even if they don't speak any language you know of or just hate your guts.
This is definitely a regional issue. This is a very hard thing we are going to constantly be learning how to deal with. It's unfair to try and dictate what languages are "allowed" in what regions. We have solutions and plans in the work for these issues. While we agree voice chat is important, we also understand there will always be barriers to voice chat - things like language, anxiety, toxicity, disabilities, etc. There are plenty of players that don't communicate that are immortal+, just like there are players that do that are immortal+. This will be something that will not be an easy solve, for anyone, and is going to take time and effort to combat.(this is also the Social and Player Dynamics team space, not mine, they know this space way better then me!)
matchmaking ignores character preferences entirely. always fun playing with 3 instalock duelists.
This is part of playing an ability based shooter where you can have different playstyles. At the end of the day, you are the constant factor in your games. We are continuously releasing more characters. There will be a time where you can have 5 sentinels, 5 initiators, etc. While it can be frustrating that you may not enjoy your team comp, or the agents your teammates are choosing, you can only effect on you perform and what you do. Remember you are the only constant factor in your matches(unless you exclusively group with the same people). I don't plan on push for enforcing a meta, or enforcing teams to be "2 Dualist, 2 Sentinel, etc." - I think that's part of the enjoyment of Valorant. Finding unique strategies and skill combos.
smurfs and/or cheaters (same difference in the end) are a morale killer
I've seen smurfs, or cheaters, thrown as a reason an individual is losing games. While we have an idea of how many smurfs there are, as well as know how many cheaters we catch, it's not going to 100% accurate(but probably pretty close). Honestly smurfs and cheaters are a very, tiny, small % of the player base and it's pretty rare to run into them. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, or that there aren't players that get unlucky and maybe have a few games where they run into them. Realistically you are still the constant factor in your matches, and those matches will be few and far between in your ranked journey. Obviously we are always combating cheaters, and we are always thinking of ways to handle smurfs better or try to reduce the reasons players feel they need to smurf.
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