Is it possible to have a competitive overwatch game in workshop with a working ranking system?
If so, would someone be able to create an actual competitive mode where they control and balance the game? i.e., a competitive mode without moira, junkrat, brigitte and balancing the rest of the game so it’s more fun and skill-based rather than annoying to play?
Let me know if this is possible! Would love to have a community managed competitive mode.
TLNR: No. Not a chance.
We can’t store any information outside of a single match. changing maps/restarting clears all varibles. There just can never be a ranking system if you can’t store something as basic as a player’s level- also, even if we could, the max number of players in a lobby is 12, so if someone was outside the rank range of the greater part of the lobby, really the only option to deal with them is to kick them or put them in spectate, this is very bad practice in custom games as- im sure you can imagine- people will get scared away from said mode.
Also there is no way to get a player’s mmr or rank of any kind.
Also, a lobby can only have one map and group of players going at once- it’s not like a mini quick play.
With all that being said- there are very janky workarounds that aren’t worth attempting really.
The first being creating a discord commutity that hosts games, which has been done in the past.
Next, you could have the host log information about players and then type that info in at the beggining of a match.
Or, what one custom did is you can create rank keys (basically passwords) that is generated by the scrip, which can later be read by that script to properly rank the player- but this reloes on the player being honest, and they could just going into the code and see what they are to give themselfs any rank.
I think organizing tournaments without Activision’s consent is prohibited by ToS. I know that’s not the exact same, but could easily be a roadblock. Blizzard seems to have a strange aversion to their own workshop, almost like it’s a potential competitor to their ridiculous matchmaker.
Imagine if more players were in custom games than in queue; I bet the producers would shut the workshop off completely, lol.
Why tho? They get money either way.
Player data, and user metrics, possibly. Basically, they would have no control over custom games, and be subject to IP theft. They probably make a ton of money from selling user data obtained from the matchmaker, or at the very least, use the metrics of the matchmaker to “balance” the game.
Perhaps it would be an insult to the matchmaker if players would prefer to make their own persistent lobbies. Or maybe it would expose something that the producers prefer to keep secret.
Just some guesses.
:tin_foil_hat:
Yes, because charmin and febreeze really would like to know your current rank and kill to death ratio 
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Maybe amazon? But that’s a streach- still not very useful data
We’re talking about one of the (arguably) more greedy companies in the industry. Would you really be surprised?
Yes because would you pay money for a spreadsheet of ranks/kdrs with (probably) all fake names linked to them?
It’s just not useful for selling ads. That’s what selling information is for anyway.
that would put them in competition with faceit if they ever get integrated into OW