I can jump on this one. I have three accounts (yeah, I’m one of those) that I play on my first account since the beta has been stuck from mid-gold to mid-plat and getting to plat is the hardest battle ever, when I drop below it. My second account (3 stars) sits at mid-high plat without any problem even if I drop to high gold, getting back into plat is a cakewalk. My third account (1 star) stays in diamond, if it drops to high plat then getting back into diamond is no problem and takes maybe two games to get back into diamond. Blizzard needs to stop with the historical bs and do a reset.
They need something/someone to blame other than their own incompetence for not being able to outperform other human beings of ”similar” skill….
It’s honestly “just” this simple. Not everyone is capable of being Diamond/Masters/Grand Master. It okay to be average.
Again…. people need a scapegoat as to why they can’t climb the ladder. They seem to forget they’re playing against other intelligent humans who are also trying to win the game.
Sometimes I actually enjoy watching people (myself included, as a software engineer but not for gaming) speculate and claim facts about a system that’s literally wrapped up deep In Blizzard HQ.
It’s quite fascinating 
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This would be fine if say it was a 50/50 split between a win/loss and actual performance. But it’s not. In my experience unless you’re a new player you gain maybe +5 or -5 SR based on performance. So 30 for a win or 20 for a loss. If you performed better than anyone else on your team and loose, you still loose 20 SR. I don’t think that is right at all. The system is basically telling you if you’re not able to carry your entire team to victory then you shouldn’t be at your current skill level you should be lower.
On another note I think the performance based SR is broken anyway. I’ve had wins where I’ve had gold healing, maybe 2 deaths and I’ve gained 3SR… And losses with the same sats and I loose 30 (10 times more than the win). Granted these kind of games aren’t the norm, I’m not saying I gain 3SR on every win. But they do happen.
And what about draws? I don’t think my SR has ever gone up or down on a draw. Where is the player performance SR in that case?
This is a reason why people start to think the system is rigged (I’m not saying it is). Blizzard have said there’s some hidden MMR metric and the system wants your MMR and your SR to line up. Now it’s not much of a stretch to think those 3SR wins are in there because the system has decided what your MMR is and doesn’t want your SR increasing above that. Again, I’m not saying that’s the case. But it’s certainly easy to see how people can think it is.
How would you explain gaining 3SR on a win? Surely I would have had to either stay in spawn all game or repeatedly throw myself off the side of the cliff to be rewarded with so little? And I can assure you I did not do that. I only noticed because I stayed until the end of the post match countdown, where it shows your SR increasing on screen. I dread to think how often this happens when people quit back to the menu before that timer is done and they just don’t notice.
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This is why competitive is trash. The reason why they do this though is to create the need to come back and win those points back. OW creates game addiction for their game. This is how they make money. Craptivision everyone. Give em a big round of applause. They need to manipulate you in order for you to play their game more.
Most of these replies are hardstuck lower elo players saying the matchmaking isn’t doing it’s job, I’ll try explaining it for you.
When new accounts get into competitive, you will start around gold elo (2300). The worst you can place is low silver, the highest you can place is high plat/diamond. This is with a new account. This means that each win/loss in a new player’s placements will affect their SR by around 150 per win/loss.
Once you’ve been placed and you keep playing, the system will get a better idea with what elo you belong in and you will start to gain/lose less elo per win/loss respectively.
Let’s say you place plat on a new account and you maintain a 50% winrate in that range. The matchmaker knows that plat is the elo you belong in so instead of the big 150 sr gained/lost per win/loss, that number will start to get lower. Once the matchmaker is completely sure that you are in the elo you belong in, your SR shifts per win/loss will be around 25.
Every time a new season starts, you have to redo your placements, but this time the matchmaker knows what elo you are in, therefore you will probably be in around the same elo as the previous season. TL;DR : after your first placements as a new player, your placements next season wont be as impactful.
For players that are Grandmaster/Top 500 (4000+ SR), their placements are capped at 3900. This means that no matter how well those GM/Top500 players do in their placements, they will get placed 3900. However, the matchmaker knows that they are Grandmaster/Top 500, so each win that they get AFTER their placements will be a lot higher than normal, and each loss will lose them less SR than normal. TL;DR the matcmaker is trying to push them into 4000+ sr as quickly as possible after placements.
Also note that the matchmaker does not care about how long you’ve been playing. While new players obviously have a bit of a disadvantage because of lack of hero knowledge, you would be surprised about how little of a difference you are from experienced players game sense wise.
Just keep playing the game and don’t worry about SR too much, OW is really complicated and you won’t get far by just mechanics. Don’t listen to the forums for how to climb because there are a large percentage of players who believe the matchmaking is designed to keep you at low ranks. My most important tip is dont make Overwatch to be too much of a team game.
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Righto… Don’t play the team based game like a team game. Noted.
Oh and it’s not broken, right?
I generally agree with you, but I’m not so sure that I would call the system that people are toiling in, a good one. The matchmaker isn’t going to keep a good enough player from climbing, but I also wouldn’t say that the matchmaker is this transparent thing that isn’t in itself a substantial impediment to climbing. I do think in a different and better system, that better players would have a more straightforward and less grueling path upward. I also definitely believe that people are too wrapped up in blaming it.
Ewww. Average. Gross! Lol. j/k
Lol, this was really good. And too true.
It really is fascinating. And you’ve got some pretty passionate people on both sides. Honestly, I’ve seen good arguments (not always, but some) from both sides of the issue, and I really do think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But yes, it’s mostly unknowable, and at the end of the day, doesn’t change much – you’re still going to have to deal with the Scourge of Existence that is Overwatch 
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Yep! The reason why I was stuck in a low rank was because I expected coordination out of my team.
Be realistic, people in low ranks just do not know how to play the game. There will be games when coordination does happen, but its not often. If you want to climb, focus on yourself. I’m not gonna get mad at my tanks for not going shield against the Widow, I’m gonna use natural cover to get close and kill her myself. I’m not going to blame DPS for not dealing with Pharah, I’m gonna harass her backline and go for a kill quickly and take pressure away from our dps and supports.
OW is an objective based game. That doesn’t mean I want to sit on cart, I’m gonna take an advantageous position. OW is also a team game, but I don’t want to rely on my team because I’m gonna lose SR by doing that. Does that mean go flank Hog? No, but just don’t rely on your team.
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On my main account I was diamond on tank and support and low plat on dps last season. I made a new account and it placed me in mid gold for tank and support and high plat on dps. So yeah I think the system is pretty broken and confused about player skill.
Thats not correct. Only in like mid masters is where your personal skill loses value, because everyone are skilled one way or another.
If your skill high enough, you can carry all those gold players on your own.
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I get where you’re coming from and my comment was sarcastic. I agree this is often the best way to play the game. But you can’t say this on one hand and then say the game isn’t broken on the other.
If you need to play a team based game not as a team to progress then the game is broken. Perhaps there’s a reason a lot of players don’t know how to play besides general incompetence? Perhaps the game could do a better job of explaining how they are supposed to be playing? Reward them for team work and punish them them when they feed? And perhaps your skill rating shouldn’t be so dependent on the actions of these people who, in your words, don’t know how to play the game?
When you’re playing a hero who’s kit is specifically designed to support the team, not attack the enemy directly. It’s a lot harder to go it alone, and when you do try you often get toxicity from your team mates for not healing them when they yolo 1v6 into the enemy team.
This has also been made a lot worse with role queue. As now if playing a support, you can’t switch to a tank or a DPS to deal with that one player your team refuses to counter.
Like I said the game is broken. If you can’t play a team game as a team in the ranks that 80-90% of the player base play at, it’s broken.
Your skill level is effected way too much by the 5 other random people on your team, whose actions you can’t control and who don’t get punished for not working as a team.
I’m not saying you can’t climb, you can. But unless you’re a GM player in silver, it’s a long overly drawn out process which often feels like a roll of the dice rather than anything your skill or willingness to work as a team has any effect over.
Perhaps that’s by design. And perhaps that’s why people then start to think the system is out to get them, I don’t know. But it certainly does feel like that at times.
Thats why 5v5 is taking over, letting you have more control over your games
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Most games I dont play with golds, its platinum players most of the times, some diamond too. Im not good enough to carry, what bothers me is that I know Im good enough to be at least platinum, and I’ve been gold for the past two seasons. What I base myself on is the fact that I’ve lost many more games and had way, WAY worse individual stats as both tank and support, and Im platinum on both! what the hell?! High platinum on tank! For gods sake I was diamond on tank last season, I dont know how to play tank, I just run at people with zarya’s beam and get killed most of the time
Thats whats bothering me, I dont feel its fair
I mean you can check my 76 stats for the placement matches this season, I had a 7,3 KD and won 4 out of 5 games. I think I did my part pretty damn well
But whatever I guess, thank you for all your answers. I guess Im used to these unfair features by now, with TF2’s terrible competitive matchmaking and CSGO’s swarm of smurfs and cheaters, I think my mistake was expecting Overwatch to not have any demoralising feature. I guess every FPS has to have one
So you just gave yourself a rank?
I mean you can check my 76 stats for the placement matches this season, I had a 7,3 KD and won 4 out of 5 games. I think I did my part pretty damn well
I did like 24 wins 1 lose with Soldier. THAT I would call pretty damn well. (Except that I was playing with players way below my rank)
Remember that platinum tank is not equal platinum dps
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Lets not kid ourselves. 5v5 is in the game to make DPS queue shorter, that’s the only reason. I’m surprised they haven’t gone 4v4 and removed a support too, as in my experience support and tank are about the same queue time.
What I think will happen is the team will be more dependent on that one tank player. If that player throws, is countered and doesn’t switch, disconnects, or just happens to be new, boosted or less skilled. You’re probably gonna loose that match.
That’s less control over the match, not more. Maybe the solution is to start playing main tank.
than what you’ve said in previous posts makes no sense. If individual skill only loses value in mid masters as you said, then I should be above my tank rank on my dps queue, since my dps performance was better than my tank