Wow, thanks for posting! This answers a LOT of questions!
TL:DR for Scott’s Post
Introduction
- The new Looking-for-Group feature is coming soon to Overwatch.
- Many players have misconceptions about grouping up together.
About Skill Rating Adjustments
- Your SR adjustments are not affected if you are playing in a group or playing solo queue.
- Your SR adjustments is purely based on your individual skill rating not the average skill rating of your team or group.
- You gain more on a win if your predicted win chance was <50%. You gain less on a win if your predicted win chance was >50%.
- Players who play less consistantly will have increased skill rating adjustments.
- Players who decayed in Diamond and higher will earn more SR until their hidden MMR and skill rating equalize.
- Players in Platinum and lower have a small influence based on their personal statistical performance in each match.
- The higher you reach to 5000 SR, the smaller gains you get for winning matches.
Facts about grouping up.
- The system does make every attempt to match groups of equal size as close as possible to each other to provide the most fair play experience for all players.
- A match cannot be created if the expected win percentage is less than 40% for either team.
- A six stack has the highest possible win percentage on average in Overwatch at 52.88%
- The looking for Group feature will organize listings by your skill rating and by connection quality (which servers you connect to).
Benefits to grouping up
- Playing in a group is less toxic and a more positive experience where players are willing to work together versus playing against total strangers.
- There is a misconception that grouping up has no long-term benefit, due to the fact groups don’t stay precisely the same or don’t synergize as well as other groups.
Questions the community is asking
- Do you believe the SR restrictions for grouping (1000 SR for Bronze through Diamond, 500 Masters, 250 Grandmasters) is still fair? There have been players calling for more restrictions in lower ranks, however, we know there has to be a reasonable balance between that and the ability for friends of similar skill to group together.
- It is believed extremely high ranks such as Top 500 range have difficulty finding matches as a 6-stack group. Is this a misconception? If it is not, what can be done for players of any rank be able to group up and find fair matches within a reasonable amount of time?
- Do you believe the penalties for leaving games in Competitive Play is still balanced? As one of the forum MVPs I answer dozens of questions each day in the tech support forum about players who complain about getting penalized when they disconnect. On the flip side of the coin, I answer nearly as many questions here on the Competitive Discussion forum about players who complain about leavers and disconnecting players and why remaining players are punished. The last available answer is way back when both you (click for source) and former community manager Lylirra (click for source) explained that SR adjustments are not accounted for leavers in order to minimize leaving and toxicity in games. I would love to confirm that the balance for penalizing players for leaving competitive games is where it needs to be. (I personally believe it is.)
- From the user Moosemoose: Since we’re on the topic of SR in general, do you have anything you can share with us about players who have reported that while unable to climb on their primary account, their secondary started them at a significantly higher SR? There seems to be this idea that no SR resets are artificially holding some people back because of their match history.
I will add to the list if other common questions appear in this thread…