Those who assist in Overwatch and are flexible will be punished by the skill rating system. But what is the reason for this?
There is an outcry in the Overwatch community again. Those who sacrifice themselves for the good of the team and choose the appropriate roles are disadvantaged by the skill rating. But why is that?
A user on Reddit, Seared_Ash, has written a long post that has received over 10,000 upvotes within just a few hours.
In the post, he describes a typical match in ranked. Four players choose DPS heroes, one Lúcio. This can work, but it does not match the desired meta of most players. So Seared_Ash decided to play Winston to at least have a tank in the group. When that did not work, he switched and tried D.Va, then Orisa – but ultimately nothing was successful.
Those who want to be friendly will be punished
The problem: To a certain extent, it seems that the gain and loss of skill rating is not only dependent on pure victory or pure defeat, but also on individual performance.
Those who collect many kills or cause a lot of healing are rated as “better” by the system. But when players decide to frequently switch characters and thereby roles, or simply fill the “gap” that helps the team, it leads to poor (statistical) performance and is punished with a point deduction.
The community reports similar problems and comes to the conclusion: To lose less skill rating, one should stick to a character with which one can secure kills – regardless of whether it ruins the chances of winning. And that is quite counterproductive, as flexible players who respond to the team’s needs are disadvantaged.
Blizzard has not commented on this issue so far, but the topic resurfaces regularly.
