Welcome to Season 29 of Competitive Play

Competitive Discussion
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Welcome to Season 29 of Competitive Play

Season 29 of Competitive Play is here!

Unlocked at level 25, Competitive Play is designed for those players who want to put their skills to the test, and offers a more serious experience than our Quick Play or Arcade Modes.


GETTING STARTED

Before you can kick off your competitive career, every player will be required to complete five placement matches in a selected role to obtain their seasonal skill rating for that role. Within the standard Role Queue competitive mode, players will earn separate skill ratings (SR) for each role in Competitive Play, for a total of three distinct SRs. This rating will be a number between 1 and 5000, with higher values indicating a greater skill level. Players will also be assigned a tier per role based on their ratingā€”Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, or Grandmaster ā€“ and climbing into the next tier is possible as you improve. Open Queue will utilize the same rating and tier system, but since there is no Role Queue system, you will have a separate, single SR reflective of your performance across all heroes within this game mode.

Skill ratings and tier icons will be visible at the beginning of every match. As you compete, your selected role or Open Queue skill rating will increase or decrease with each win or loss based on a number of factors, including your own performance and the skill of the other players in the match.

A detailed breakdown of the skill tiers, along with icons and information about the corresponding skill ratings can be found by pressing the ā€œInformationā€ button under the Competitive Play menu.


COMPETITIVE REWARDS

In addition to experiencing the thrill of victory, players can also unlock unique rewards through Competitive Play. Anyone who completes their placement matches in any role or Open Queue during a Competitive Season will receive a special spray and player icon.

On top of that, as you complete competitive matches, youā€™ll earn a currency called Competitive Points. When the season concludes, youā€™ll also receive a number of Competitive Points based on the highest Skill Tier you obtained during the season per role to spend on golden versions of your favorite heroesā€™ weapons. This also applies to your highest Skill Tier reached within the Open Queue.

Hereā€™s the Skill Rating (SR) to Competitive Point (CP) breakdown:

Per Role Open Queue Max Total
Bronze 25 65 140
Silver 50 125 275
Gold 100 250 550
Platinum 200 500 1100
Diamond 300 750 1650
Master 450 1200 2550
Grandmaster 650 1750 3700

TOP 500 LEADERBOARDS

The best of the best players compete across five separate Top 500 Leaderboards. Within Role Queue, one for each role, along with an additional combined average leaderboard. The combined Role Queue Top 500 Leaderboard will be based on the playerā€™s average skill rating across all three roles. To be eligible for a role-specific leaderboard, players must complete at least 25 games in that role. To qualify for the combined Top 500 Leaderboard, players must be eligible for all three role-specific leaderboards. Open Queue will have its own Leaderboard that will require at least 50 games played within the game mode for qualification. At the end of the season, players who earn a spot within the Top 500 players for any of these leaderboards on their platform and region will receive an additional player icon and animated spray.


Season 29 is live RIGHT NOW on Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, so power up your favorite gaming machine and join the fight. Weā€™ll see you in-game!


As a reminder, new seasons begin on the first Thursday of every other month. Weā€™ve included a projected 2021 calendar of season start dates below!

Start Date (PDT)
Season 30 September 2, 2021
Season 31 November 4, 2021
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Good luck climbing, everyone :relaxed:

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Hell yeah, letā€™s get it baby :smiley:

Good luck to you all.

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Thanks Josh. Please could you comment on on the documented algorithmic handicapping? There is a thread on it somewhere. Players are losing trust in the integrity of competitive. It feels like there is no transparency about these variables that are unknown to players that form MMR.

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Been away from the forums for a very long time. Can you explain to me what youā€™re talking about?

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You dont actually want to know, heā€™s talking about a thread full of player speculation, conspiracies, and experience. It also at one point mentioned taking legal action against Blizzard on false claims of a rigged matchmaker.

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Ah so ā€œitā€™s the matchmakerā€™s fault I canā€™t climbā€ mentality. Got it.

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:100:

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I donā€™t understand why people just bash that thread, there is a legit desire to improve the matchmaker, and legit arguments for it. If it never changes , I for one will be fine with it too, it will never change the amount of people that go pro. Cuthbert isnā€™t insulting in his defense of his theory, and he does use dev statements to bolster his theories. (at least as far as Iā€™ve seen) Believe it or donā€™t, but you donā€™t have to bash it. Iā€™m old, Iā€™m not going pro in the end, improvements on the matchmaker are needed IMO even if my DPS never leaves Bronze/Silver.

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OMEGALULā€¦.

You picked up on that faster than mostā€¦.

:hugs::kissing_heart:

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Luck? After 29 seasons I will still be bronze and enjoy the trash it is.

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No mention of console crossplay?

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  1. He tries to argue that the match maker decides to single out players and prevent them from climbing. (If itā€™s rigged for you, itā€™s rigged for everyone else)

  2. He and all the players aligned with his mindset fail to account for human error in all of their logic. Their egos are overblown into thinking theyā€™re gods gift to Overwatch.

  3. Literally none of the ā€œgit gudā€ crowd claims that the match maker is perfect. But itā€™s very capable of determining a very balanced match.

Ehhhā€¦. Semi-legit.

I actually sat through all of his YouTube video and I agree he makes a great argument.

The problem is, for all of his points to be right, a lot of conditions must be met and (aside from inconsistency of player experience), everything he eluded to boils down to human error while playing the game :unamused:

Overwatch being Blizzards first FPS competitive game, I think they did a pretty damn good job.

That said, they could stand to probably modernize their system. Riot is always altering a lot of factors about their competitive play.

Depends on who heā€™s talking to. Iā€™ve seen him treat people like excrement, which is why Iā€™m always very unfiltered with his type.

Cherry picking and twisting what is actually being communicated is bad argumentation. But politicians do it all the time, so I guess ignore this one :woman_shrugging:t2:

Iā€™m not old but Iā€™m not young. Even more, Iā€™m not dumb enough to be blinded by my own ego into thinking Iā€™m better at a game than I am.

A lot of the nonsense people from his side of the party (god we really are politicians :face_vomiting:) place so much blame on their teammates rather than accepting self-accountability.

As someone who started in Bronze, climbed to gold, got hard stuck, climbed to Platinum, got hardstuck, and eventually climbed to Diamond through lots of self-dedication to improvement I will never understand blaming my teammates.

I participated in scrims and organized competitive Overwatch for almost a year before climbing to masters.

Yes, I can look at the situation and determine that my tanks arenā€™t effectively making space, or my supports have yet to heal me even once since 3 minutes into the game.

But I can always adapt MY play style to change the outcome (to the best of MY ability) of the game.

Tanks getting walked on and donā€™t wanna swap? Okay, Cree/Reaper/Mei/Symm all help with that.

Supports not healing me? Okay, did you know anywhere on any map, youā€™re within 2 Genji dashes of a health pack?

Supports need peeling and off-tank/other DPS wonā€™t do it? Well, I donā€™t believe in the ā€œnot my jobā€ mentality.

I guess thatā€™s just my approach to Overwatch though. Maybe Iā€™m wrong. Maybe the MM really is rigged. Wellā€¦. Itā€™s rigged in my favor then and that shouldnā€™t change :smirk::smirk:

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I go with this. I think rigged is a bad choice of words. Yes Receipts has been nasty, but I havenā€™t really seen Cuthbert be that way. Doesnā€™t mean he hasnā€™t beenā€¦ it meanā€™s I havenā€™t seen it. I think the integrity is questionable of the ladder, due to it haviing too many different factors. If you think itā€™s fine, though you concede itā€™s not perfect, thatā€™s cool too. There is no malice in his theories, and my anecdotal stories agree with his. It doesnā€™t mean weā€™re all crazy conspiracy theorists. I play this game still because I love it. I make suggestions in an attempt to improve it, I suspect Cuthbert does the same.

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No. I believe the argument he makes is that inexperienced players are favored whereas experienced players are made to play with inexperienced players to carry them.

One possible justification of this being to aid player retention.

This just seems like a personal attack and can be dismissed on that basis alone. I have seen no evidence that the author of that thread is under any illusion that he is somehow Godā€™s gift.

It is implied when they say that ā€œyou are where you belongā€.

Also no one is denying that the matchmaker is able to provide a balanced match. The dispute arises when that balanced match is made at the cost of true fairness.

In fact a central argument Cuthbert establishes is that ā€œbalancedā€ is in fact unfair and done to create the illusion of fairness.

I have never seen him treat people in this way unless the other person instigated.

This needs elaboration. The statements provided by Scott Mercer did not appear to be cherry-picked.

You are a very, very dedicated player then. You managed to battle your way through the system. Congratulations.

Indeed. We just want the game to be as good as it can possibly be.

Algorithmic handicapping goes against the spirit of fair competition.

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I hope you all have a good season!

is the origin of the ā€œrigged matchmakerā€ movement in recent times and they spammed the heck out of every thread they could find to try to spread the nonsense. While they may be able to talk well the words amounted to nothing more than to spawn hateful people with a disgust toward developer and player alike.

Cuthbert is not innocent.

Good. we donā€™t need xplay in comp.

I hope you all have a good season!
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For what?

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like I said. I donā€™t think Rigged is a good word. But I donā€™t say that. I also donā€™t take rigged away from his explanation.

I donā€™t think a gold tank is equivalent to a gold dps to a gold support. So using the average of each team on paper looks good, I donā€™t think itā€™s quite right. to someone that may feel rigged. But I will notice that games always seem even when gold tanks and supports play with Plat DPS. And I am sure it has something to do with the amount of players messing with the bell curves of each. where only the top and bottom amounts are correct.

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Letā€™s not start a discussion about that in this thread. It would probably be better if you put your thoughts on paper in another thread. :slight_smile:

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nah itā€™s all good. Iā€™ve explained this before. Youā€™re right though this isnā€™t the thread for this. Iā€™ve been pretty consistent in my views since i started posting on this board. And if I had a view that has changed, someone made a compelling argument or brought up something that Iā€™ve never thought about. I just think Cuthbert gets an excess of hate. I donā€™t need or want anybody to believe him if they donā€™t already.

Edit: I assume itā€™s a him. If not, Iā€™m sorry in advance.

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