Overwatch‘s third competitive season has begun. It didn’t take long for the forums to be flooded with angry comments about placements.
Some players in Overwatch feel: Their rank in competitive matches does not correspond to their performance in the placement matches. Some players who are ranked really high suddenly jumped from Diamond to Master or from Master to Grandmaster. While it’s perhaps not something to complain about. But quite a few Gold and Silver players have dropped down to Bronze.
The general complaint has always been the same: No one could figure out why the rank differed so much from that of the last season. Since the rank determines which opponents you face in matches, players are now worried that the matchmaking will not be well balanced.
Since Season 3 has started, placements are THE topic in the Overwatch community. However, the thing is that Blizzard already explained with the announcement of Season 3 what will change in the ranking system.
“One other thing we want to improve in competitive mode is how we distribute everyone into skill tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, etc), based on their SR. When Season 2 started, we had WAY more players in Gold and Platinum than originally planned and many fewer in Bronze and Silver. This resulted from how we calculated your initial SR for Season 2. We tried to reset player SR at the beginning of Season 2, but the result was not what we expected. Instead, below-average players started Season 2 with a higher SR than they should have based on their performance in Season 1. This led to these players quickly falling down the ranks in Season 2 and it didn’t feel good. It also means that there was a much bigger difference in skill in Gold and Platinum than we wanted. We would like to avoid that in Season 3.
As a result, we are now testing various ways on the PTR to determine your starting SR in Season 3. We are trying to make sure that it stays fair for everyone, instead of giving everyone a fresh start. We will also set your SR slightly lower at the beginning. In exchange, fewer players should drop ranks so drastically if they have a good win-loss ratio.” – Blizzard
According to Blizzard, the end result is that some players do not start with the same rank as in Season 2, but skill ratings improve. And that’s exactly what’s happening.
The annoying part is that Blizzard made these changes to Overwatch’s competitive mode to make it feel fairer. However, it currently has the opposite effect. But this is Blizzard’s attempt to create a new framework for this and future seasons. Hopefully, this framework will achieve the desired success in the long run, so that players are better distributed across ranks and improve rather than decline.
What are your experiences so far? Have you ended up in a different rank than you expected? This is not the only thing Blizzard has changed for quality improvement. Cheaters have been hit hard with the ban hammer!
