Blizzard,
I realize that the team that runs this game probably won’t read this but as there seems to be nowhere to contact directly with this kind of feedback:
Bit of story time, Skip the quoted section if you want to get to the point I’m using this as context for:
Season 10 I started in gold, 2026. It was my return from a ranked hiatus where I had reached 2241 before that. I loved playing in gold as a support main. I enjoyed the crap out of it, I played with people who understood to protect their supports from the diving winston. Who understood that “We need someone to change to hitscan because that pharah is wrecking us and no one can stop her.” Who made shot calls, worked together, and played to win as a TEAM! Was I good enough to be in diamond, probably not, but I was okay with getting better over time and reaching it eventually.
Then I hit a losing streak with the at-the-time brand new LFG system, not recognizing warning signs that teammates weren’t going to work well together. It resulted in a series of losses that dropped me to 1970. After several games of win-followed-by-loss without reaching above 2000 again, the game program itself dropped me to 1800 by default and locked me into Silver. I’ve been stuck there ever since. Constantly running into either allied teams that don’t work together as well as the enemy team, or running into enemy teams that have used the LFG system to derank themselves to silver so they can troll everyone else with vastly superior playing. (And fellow forumers, DON’T YOU DARE try telling me people don’t derank themselves I send reports to Blizzard about it every time I open up LFG and spot one. I see those groups daily.)
Finally I gave up and decided to start fresh next season. Season 11 placements put me at 1900. Just outside of gold, figured I could get back in. But then I kept playing thinking things would get better, and ended up with the same thing that happened last season. Plenty of wins, yes, but more losses resulting in a loss of drive and energy. Net result, 1789 at the end of the season.
So I waited for Season 12 and tried again. Made the mistake of doing my placements right after reset when all is chaos, and I ended up with 5 wins 5 losses, and my SR landed right at 1790… Right where I left off last time. That’s when this video gets posted by Blame the Controller:
Placement matches DON’T RESET YOUR SR so you can have a blank slate?! You can only get MAYBE an extra 100 SR over your last season’s ending point, IF you manage to play exceptionally well?! I’m going to be bogged down by my past seasons for the entirety of my time playing overwatch unless I buy a fresh copy of the @#$% game?!
Blizzard, I am a support main. We don’t make the big plays unless we give up healing, helping team position, protecting allies, etc. in order to play like we’re not supports. It’s our teammates, the dps’s and tanks, that make the plays - we just keep them alive and make it happen. But I can’t rely on my team in silver, which as it turns out is the low-end 25-40% of the community. There’s no teamwork for me to support, no coordination to work off and pull a win. My only chance at getting back to the ranks that I know I belong in, based on my past gameplay and rankings, was (I thought) the placement matches giving a fresh start.
At this point I don’t want to play ranked ever again, knowing that the game’s own system is going to keep me from getting back to gold. Knowing that the current placement system REWARDS people for spending money on new copies of the game to start over with, meaning it’s literally a pay to win game. And if I’m disheartened you can bet there’s a lot of other support players who are, and likely many DPS, Tanks and Flexes too.
Please, change the Placement system to reset our rankings every season. Otherwise if all I’m going to get is MAYBE an extra 100SR above my past season then I’m done with ranked, and you’ll likely lose (and have already lost) a lot of other players out of ranked who are in the same boat I am.
I’m not asking to be put back to the ranking I know I am good enough to be in, I’d be happy to earn my way back on a clean slate. But we need that opening to do so, and the current placement system clearly doesn’t allow it. So please, give us resets at the start of each season, otherwise what’s the point of having placements in the first place?
Thank you for your time.