The biggest change is that SR will be removed, and will be replaced with a tiering system: Bronze 1-5, Silver 1-5, Gold 1-5 etc. Your visible rank will only be updated after seven wins or twenty losses. MMR will still be used, but even more hidden. This makes it virtually impossible to reverse engineer the system, as I attempted to do with How Competitive Matchmaking and Ranking Works (Season 28+). As such, my explainers on the ranking system will cease.
It can be summarized with:
Play well, rank up.
Trust us.
Iâm not a fan. I wanted to go the other direction, where MMR is visible (preferably with a published algorithm) and SR is removed.
It appears that the developersâ motivation is âCompetitive players should feel a sense of progressionâ ⌠âwhat weâre doing to make Overwatch 2 Competitive feel fun and fair to playâ ⌠âwhile veteran players donât feel discouraged by teammatesâ ⌠âto optimize matchmaking in a way that feels good to everyoneâ⌠âWe want you to feel like youâre improving and being rewarding for advancingâ
The last quote especially (and âYou can expect to start in lower Skill Tier Divisions after placement matches and progress the ranks throughout the seasonâ) makes me worry that they are going to try to make people feel like they are getting better, when they actually are not (by increasing their rank based more on games played rather than actual skill or MMR improvement).
To me, the whole point of competitive is to have an accurate measure of my skill and improvement (as well as playing with people of similar skill and motivation). Making it quick play with stickers is not what Iâm looking for.
âCompetitive play has been at the heart of the Overwatch community for years, and we have long-term plans to TORTURE this game mode far into the futureâ
Absolutely 100% agreed. This is how I feel about it as well⌠It shouldnât be a feel good system, it should be quite simply about giving players an accurate ranking and being transparent about itâŚ
While I think the whole âupdating every 7 win/20 lossesâ is weird as heck, i kind of prefer the tiered ranking system compared to what we have now.
Too many people were way to obsessed with the small changes (+/- 25 SR) in their SR.
Peopleâs SR generally (im estimating here) is at an average value +/- 200SR.
Having a tiered system will (hopefully) prevent people from focusing too hard on the number.
R6 shows both SR and rank tier, and i find myself only looking at the number when im close to a transition from one tier to the next
Itâs the same SR system but without visible numbers.
Every 100 SR, itâs a division. From 5 to 1. If you reach 7 wins or 20 loss first, the progress of both will reset the counter to 0. By Updating your rank
Since itâs a bit confusing how in-between you will rank up or down. Example: 7W & 9L / 3W & 20L
Average SR you gain: 14.3 per match won.
Average SR you lose: 5 per match lost.
Thatâs what I think, the â7 wins and 20 lossâ thing seems a bit weird. Itâs like they want you to feel that youâre always increasing SR by playing a lot more.
5 sr loss x 20 matches lost is = 100 SR (a division)
14.3 sr win x 7 matches won is = 100SR (a division)
If I had 7W and 15L, maybe would be like this?
100 SR won - 75 SR lost equals = 25 SR gain?
OW1âs ranking system caused hyper-fixations and rampant speculation by the less intelligent among us.
They did give us a âthe brackets represent roughly 100SR worth of progressionâ the number actually got in the way, I feel. With as much study on the matchmaker that both you and I have done itâs actually a pretty fair system, all things considered.
SR is something we have to move past.
Now we can only hope they are working on fixing the âfirst game lossâ and âsecond roundâ syndrome the game has been plagued with since launch.
This will happen when hell freezes over. Hiding MMR allows for all sorts of hassle-free tinkering and adjustments that are safe from prying eyes, questioning, and concerns. The general trend here is to be less transparent about how SR and progression works, not more in the open.
Concealing both SR and MMR does a host of wonderful things for Blizzard in terms of dissolving accountability, obscuring data which could raise questions or concerns on the part of players, and enabling fewer instances of legitimate player puzzlement since players will no longer have the detailed, up to date information they need to raise valid questions or put two and two together. And all this while encouraging players to focus less on the aspects of the environment theyâre in and how it works, and more on the dopamine drip side of things. It cleverly solves a lot of problems for them, but doesnât have many if any positives for players. I suppose players who are raging lunatics about loss of SR from match to match will have fewer embolisms. So thereâs thatâŚ
I think they are trying to balance for the fact that going down a rank feels worse than going up a rank feels good. So if you can only go down a rank once every 20 losses, but can go up a rank every seven wins, you will rank down less often.
I donât think that they mean that 7 wins = one rank up, and 20 losses = one rank down. This would cause an average 50% player to be able to hit GM by just grinding.
I suspect the way that it will work is that MMR will be wrapped in a hidden SR that decays, so that wins are worth more than losses until some number of games are played each season. Overwatch 1 was like this when it first launched. It was removed because it feels bad to fight your way up to plat and then get busted down to gold the following season for no reason.
After 7 wins or 20 losses, the current division (based on hidden SR) will be shown.
You canât stop speculation by giving less information. Youâll only get speculation that is further from the truth.
The developers ideas are bad. They are putting so much effort in creating a system that âfeels legitâ rather than just creating a legit system. They used to do this when they would have placements start you purposely around 100 SR lower than last season and then give you easy to win matches so you could start the season off with a bang. What a stupid idea.
This quote right here (note the bold)
Our team has also been considering how to approach players who have not played Overwatch recently. Players who havenât played recently are less likely to maintain their actual prior skill output in a match. To help account for this and make matches fairer, players who havenât played in a while will find their internal matchmaking rating lowered to help us re-evaluate and determine their current skill level.
tells me all I need to know, they are still using a garbage algorithm to figure out where to force you to rank up to. What a bunch of lost, confused IQâs.
Iâm sure you âknowâ a lot about the matchmaker. Iâm just concerned about how much of it actually true, and how much is your little fantasy world.
Especially considering you always make these claims without any proof, apart from your own expiriences.
But Iâm sure you could easily provide concrete evidence. You just choose not to.
Itâs feelings over facts because engagement metrics are more important to a multi-billion dollar company than competitive integrity and transparency, unfortunately.
Rather than making a product that is good in hopes it turns a profit, theyâve simply adopted a model that preys on human psychology to get their money. If it happens to be a decent game, thatâs just a bonus.
The biggest change is that SR will be removed, and will be replaced with a tiering system: Bronze 1-5, Silver 1-5, Gold 1-5 etc. Your visible rank will only be updated after seven wins or twenty losses. MMR will still be used, but even more hidden.
OW1 was never able to produce good matchmaking - the diff between the best and the worst player on the same team would always be so big that it was just not enjoyable. I think given the mess they had at blizzard, they probably wont change anything other than some cosmetics, and therefore it is better to just hide the matchmaking system as much as they can for OW2. This decision makes a lot of sense.
