There’s another explanation for this. When they introduced map voting, they said that the initial choices were going to be from the lobby’s least played maps. Map voting has influenced what are the “least played” maps. Which means these are going to come up more often.
I don’t think we need a conspiracy theory. The devs already explained it I think. But this means that inevitably, people will get their least favorite maps (or at least the community’s least favorites) as the choices a lot over time. Maybe they need to rethink this.
I picked it until I actually played it. I hadn’t played it yet and wanted to try it. But after playing a couple of matches on it, I vote against it every time now.
In Overwatch 2, the map pool for each game mode is pre-determined and selected by the game, not randomly chosen by players. When players queue for a match, the game attempts to select a map that is least played by all players in that specific match, aiming for variety. While the choice is not entirely random, the specific map selection within the pool is influenced by each player’s match history.
Because all of those are OW2 map types and can’t admit they failed at them. It’s not even real voting either. If something gets more votes than the other two it should be insta-locked, instead there’s a small roll going on.
I have heard them say this too in interviews, and it is fine except it should count them as “played” too if they come up but you DON’T vote for it. That way skipping it in voting also makes it not come up as often afterward. Because the OP is right, lots and lots of Flashpoint and Push in the pool right now.
It’s because two of the three map choices are based on your least recently played maps. So if everyone keeps voting for “not flashpoint/clash” then flashpoint and clash maps consistently become everyone’s least recently played maps, and will pop up more frequently.
They said that’s how it works in the dev blog introducing map voting. If you didn’t get penalized then that’s a bug.
Map Voting: Choose the Map, Shape the Match
Map Voting goes live at launch in Quick Play and Competitive, letting you shape the match before it starts and control where the action unfolds. After role queue locks, you’ll get three randomized map options to choose from. Every vote adds a 1-in-10 chance to that map’s odds, and the winner is selected using a roulette style roll.
To keep things chill, team chat, battle tags, and individual votes are hidden, so there’s no pressure—just a better chance at playing on maps you love. And leaver penalties kick in as soon as voting starts, so stick around and make it count.
Your match, your map, so take the fight where you want it.