I am not sure if this is just a feeling, but I remember how well I had to play in Overwatch 1 just to get even close to 4K, and nowdays I feel like you can archive it without even playing that active.
My theory is that with F2P Model, there are new players that joined and due to the controversial changes, many veteran players left. So while in OW1, the top ranks were really contested, in OW2 more spots opened up with more competition at lower ranks instead, leading to a more balanced rank distribution.
However, this is just a theory based on subjective feelings. So I ask: Has anyone else experienced something similar?
Pretty much spot on imo. Influx of new players end up filling bottom ranks thus pushing players up a bit. The thing to remember though is your rank isn’t handed to you. If you are the rank you are its because earned it. If it feels easier its probably because you got better. 
It’s not just you. Morgan (mm dev) confirmed a bit of inflation a while back on Twitter. It’s easy enough to intuit: If you’re standing at the end of the line in 5th place, and 50 people get in line behind you, suddenly you’re in the front. Same concept.
If I had to guess I would say add 500sr to convert ow1 rank to ow2 rank.
I think it depends on the account. It is easier to get gm on a new account than before but still equally difficult on an old acc.
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I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and it seems you felt that too: old accounts have a sort of “penalty” and have a harder time climbing?
Above all that, we’re stacked with all the noobs that just arrived in the game and don’t know what they’re doing…like devs could not do something to prevent that, based on the accounts’ history.
I just lost a game because the noobs I had as teammates ALL left the objective on overtime…what are they doing in comp, for god’s sake ???
I like Awkward’s videos and what he preaches, but despite what he says: you can’t outplay 4 bad teammates. It’s like being in a fight against 4 MMA fighters with 15 year-olds on your side !
Something else that could help: reaching level 25 to be able to play in comp is not enough…characters should only be available after a certain amount of hours playing them, so we would not get a DVa main trying to play Rein in comp with 1 hour of playtime for example…
Also, why can we only avoid 3 players max as teammates ? Why a cap on this ? Because of Top 500 that would not be able to play with anyone if that was available ?
First, it could be available based on the rank, and second, we don’t care about the Top 500…they’re a minority !
You think? It took me 4 hours to hit GM5 in ow2, yet it took me 15 hours in Overwatch 1, with a HIGHER winrate onetricking the same hero lol. Masters is essentially the new plat, low GM is essentially the new diamond.
Another thing to consider: The late seasons of ow1 were the most difficult due to the game being mostly dead and only diehards remained. I had a hard time even maintaining plat in those seasons despite being a career high plat/low diamond hardstuck for most of the previous 20 or so seasons. Now in ow2 I am still back around that same rank.
Although I do think I was better at 6v6 and I’m positive that 2cp was my best mode in terms of win rates. So I’m not sure exactly how much those things being removed impacted my SR.
But if you think about the early seasons of ow1, there was also a lot of rank inflation back then too. In season 3 in particular was when you had that one guy who hit 5000 SR on asian server and many players had their career peak SR in that season as a result.
Most of the “fake” master and gm accounts I see in ow2 that appear to be boosted are relatively new accounts. I don’t get them in my games as much as I used to, but around seasons 2 and 3 it was almost every game even though I was still stuck in plat myself.
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