As I've read through these messages (and there are some good ones) I've been changing my thoughts from a simple change (where the PSR can decrease with a win and increase with a loss) to a bigger flaw with the current system ... my biggest concern is that the proposed system isn't zero sum. On the surface, the numbers look zero sum, but that's only if we get the appropriate distribution of match scores on the winning and losing team (mentioned by a few) ... in reality (as a some have shown, and I'll look at it when I play this weekend) every match will not be zero sum ... and there's no info on if, overall, the increases and decreases will balance over every match (probably not because match scores will skew to higher values because there's a fixed match score floor of 0).
So, to ensure this is actually zero sum ... the increase/decrease in PSR needs to: 1) either be determined each match with those with higher/lower match score (or whatever scoring) getting the greatest increase/decrease, or 2) an even simpler system to just rank the match scores (that already include something for W/L) and give the top 12 players an increase of +12 to +1 and the bottom 12 players a decrease of -1 to -12 (others have also mentioned this approach). The only potential downside is that there is no upper/lower bound on the total score ... although simple caps could help ... or some type of running average ... or using some type of Elo system that does the same with a little more detail (so it won't nicely fit into 8 categories).
The latter option will ensure zero sum, and increase the PSR of the players more often at the top of their match. Yes, this approach doesn't include the match score, but would more easily account for the rare 12-11 match where everyone does well and the 3-2 match shown in a previous because of capping ... you might actually get more matches where the objective is actually important (instead of getting in the way of a skirmish) because people won't be worrying about the magnitude of their match score ... they just need to do better than others.
As I write this ... changing the PSR based on the match score ranking is probably the simplest option that captures the general interest of the players. The goal is to better separate skill levels to try and improve balanced matches ... there aren't enough players to have, for example, just Tier 1 vs Tier 1, but right now there are individuals (like myself) that are in Tiers higher than they should. Also, rather than use the Tiers to balance, the system could actually use the PSR (or whatever we want to call this metric) to balance the teams.
While I think some Elo system would be better (I don't know how well it's worked in the Comp Play), whatever system is adopted should ensure zero-sum after every match to guarantee the overall system is zero-sum.
Edited by Firefox54, 05 June 2020 - 06:26 AM.