So how are your games going lately? [megathread]

[Jessicka]

1) The variance in how much rating you lose/gain is just much too wild. One game the bar goes up/down barely an inch and the next it's "WOO IMA GONNA MOVE AN ENTIRE FUCKING RATINGS WORTH OF BAR!". Even taking MMR differences and "performance" into account, that's just weird.

2) I'm still not sure that ratings mean much right now. You still find extremely mediocre people at high ranks and suspiciously well-organized people at low ranks. That's not to say that "organizing" certain things is hard or anything, but when the enemy Zarya throws up a barrier on Reaper right as he runs in and pops Death Blossom, then she lobs her Gravity Well right at all the people who ran from the Death Blossom and right at that instant the Hanzo dragon flies into all of them...ok, that's not "Rank 28 PUGs" organization there, something else is up.

Meanwhile a friend of mine is Rank 74 and he still rages because his teammates run off the map, or one of them is a "Bastion Main", or the Soldier/McCree on the team can't hit the enemy Pharah to save their life. So on and so forth.

It's a 100 point granular scale, with everyone thrown in around 35-75; so the moves within the full scale aren't that big, but they feel enormous within the population right now. A rank feels maybe twice as important, or more, than it really should be representing. That's why it feels so shitty.

[Roose]

I'm honestly curious as to how many people here play on the console, because this might just be anecdotal, but from my experience, on the PC while there was trash talking at some points, everyone at least tried to pick a balanced team (as in, if we have no healers yet, last person will pick a healer), yet I watched my friend play on the PS4 and literally every single match would have like 2-3 McCrees/Soldiers on defense, no healers or tank, people just spam picking their character as like a "I have them picked pick another" type of thing.

And then to top it off, of course the PS4 has no chat option aside from mics, so even the little communication the PC has is gone completely.

I am playing on console. I am only here because I used this site when playing wow. I doubt many console players visit, but I could be wrong.

At first there was a lot of mic use. That was good and bad. Mostly it was just people bitching or some asshat with their tv up too high. Looked like most joined chat so they could at least listen. That was pre-comp release. Not sure how PC is but you have to change chats at start of each match if grouped up. I do not think many know that you need to switch. Usually groups justbstay in their own chats and only solos are in team chat. In competitive people that do talk usually use it productively. QP is all whining.

People seem to start picking to win around the same point when attacking becomes easier than defending. On console that seems to be mid 50s. Healers and tanks are picked early most of the time. Rare to see bad setups lately.

When I get a PC for VR I will also start playing OW on it. Until then I am enjoying it with a controller.

[Endus]

Getting more and more sick of the game. I'm thinking I'll be dropping it very soon if I don't decide to find a premade instead. It's literally unplayable. I was at 58 rating 3 days ago. Now I'm at 51, and that's after crawling up from 49.

I really have to wonder, with comments like this, if people understand this is a ranking system, not a progression system.

The goal is to have you hit a certain rank, and if you hit a lucky win streak, while you may get above it, you'll inevitably fall back down to it again. If you dip below due to an unlucky streak, you'll claw your way back up. But you are not expected to be able to slowly increase your rank over time. That is not what the system is meant to do, at all.

If you're playing at your level and improving at the same pace as other people at your level, then you're at the right rank, and shouldn't be moving up or down much. If you want to climb, you need to actually get significantly better. More than just getting a little more practice with a few games a night, like other people are likely doing. A concerted training effort to improve. Which I doubt most people will do.

It may just be that you're a rank 51 level player. Placement ranked you slightly too low, you had a lucky streak, and the reason you're "stuck" at 51 is because that's where you should be. Or maybe you just had an unlucky streak, and will climb back up. Regardless, you'll hit a balance point, and that's your proper rank, and that's what you should expect to be revolving around.

1) The variance in how much rating you lose/gain is just much too wild. One game the bar goes up/down barely an inch and the next it's "WOO IMA GONNA MOVE AN ENTIRE FUCKING RATINGS WORTH OF BAR!". Even taking MMR differences and "performance" into account, that's just weird.

I do think they could provide a little more data on why your rank is changing so much/little. Not in detail; that provides means for people to "game" the system, but something like "performed in the 37th percentile for your heroes this match"; if you're rank 50, that should mean you lose a lot of rank for a loss, gain a little for a win. If you were rank 50 and performed at the 63rd percentile, then you should see that reversed; a small loss, or a big win.

I know I've had matches where I've gained almost an entire rank, so it's not like losses are all a full rank and wins are all 10% of a rank. We're just not given any feedback as to WHY those values are high or low, each match.

2) I'm still not sure that ratings mean much right now. You still find extremely mediocre people at high ranks and suspiciously well-organized people at low ranks. That's not to say that "organizing" certain things is hard or anything, but when the enemy Zarya throws up a barrier on Reaper right as he runs in and pops Death Blossom, then she lobs her Gravity Well right at all the people who ran from the Death Blossom and right at that instant the Hanzo dragon flies into all of them...ok, that's not "Rank 28 PUGs" organization there, something else is up.

Have they said whether we'll re-do placements every season? I'd think that would be a mistake. Right now, if you're just jumping in, your placements might drop you way too high (or low).

Also, bear in mind that coordination is huge; a bunch of rank 35s who actually plan things out and communicate WILL perform better than if they weren't communicating at all.

[Jessicka]

Have they said whether we'll re-do placements every season? I'd think that would be a mistake. Right now, if you're just jumping in, your placements might drop you way too high (or low).

Also, bear in mind that coordination is huge; a bunch of rank 35s who actually plan things out and communicate WILL perform better than if they weren't communicating at all.

I've seen it mentioned that it was said at some point that they would reset. No source was given of course. I think with this being season 1, and that there are a lot of changes coming, and that there were changes that happened within the season, that this time it wouldn't be a terrible idea to reset, as it would undoubtedly bring back players who thought they'd been hard done by or whatever. I don't think it's something that they should do or make a habit of every season though.

[Daws001]

Now, I haven't played Lucio in forever but I learned this morning that the lights on his Ribbit skin change colors with his auras (not just the gun and skates). Naturally I freaked out, tested it, declared the Ribbit skin the greatest skin, and then decided that Lucio was the greatest character by virtue of having the greatest skin.

I snuck home on my lunch break to play a quick game with the Ribbit...earned his cute achievement and won a tightly contested match. It's a sign y'all. /ribbit

[ThatsOurEric]

Good lord it just gets worse and worse.

[Ausr]

I swear sometimes there are days where I play my go-to characters and I just utterly suck, then I play some that I don't usually play and rock the fuck out of them. I don't get it.

[LordAmbrosia]

Got placed at 44 after having a great winrate in quickplay, so I was fairly sure it placed me too low. Had a lot of losses while getting tons of golds, so I hovered in the same spot until my luck finally turned around. Now climbing steadily up to 55 now. Getting stuck can happen, but you'll climb out if you just keep performing well, the system won't punish you as hard if you are getting a lot of medals.

[Daws001]

D.Va is bae. I earned the Undying achievement with her today + I have her pixel and cute sprays (only character with both) and I have my second highest winrate with her (Symmetra is #1, go figure). She's a few games away from being my most played character (sorry, Zarya).

I'm itching to learn Winston now. Tried him awhile ago but didn't give him much of a shot.

[Pendulous]

D.Va is bae.

Yes she is, but it seems like any time I play her, the other team has Zarya as a tank.

[Daws001]

Yes she is, but it seems like any time I play her, the other team has Zarya as a tank.

I'm not too bothered by Zarya. She's dangerous when charged up but otherwise you can burn her down in close range. Mei is the only character I keep a distance from and attack when she's distracted lol.

[ThatsOurEric]

Finally got to rank 52, which is my highest so far.

And then from there, nothing but losses until I hit rank 50.

Jesus christ though, there are some HORRIBLE people on these upper levels.
Scum bags who though around the N-word, and then there's your non-stop
complainers and toxic player who curse you or the team out.

Seems to get worse the higher I go.

[Deleted]

@55 right now and damn every other game is one side having several leavers. Feels like ranked is just broken. Tried to do two this morning and had 4v5 loss and 3v6 loss back to back.

Blizzard really need to sort that out, its making me want to stop playing as it's just a waste of time.
@ThatsOurEric yep, it seems to get more racist and homophobic the higher you go.

[ThatsOurEric]

That's also another thing, way too many leavers.

I've been fortunate enough to not be the one on the receiving end from
most of the games where there were, but I always feel bad for the other
team.

[Graeham]

That's also another thing, way too many leavers.

I've been fortunate enough to not be the one on the receiving end from
most of the games where there were, but I always feel bad for the other
team.

They really need to disable loot box acquisition for a set period of time to punish people who leave a game abruptly. Let it ramp up in severity for people who make it a frequent habit and the attitude will - hopefully - soon change. I can't think of anything else that would serve to punish players enough to deter them and a slight hit to experience gains just isn't enough of an incentive.

[Temp name]

They really need to disable loot box acquisition for a set period of time to punish people who leave a game abruptly. Let it ramp up in severity for people who make it a frequent habit and the attitude will - hopefully - soon change. I can't think of anything else that would serve to punish players enough to deter them and a slight hit to experience gains just isn't enough of an incentive.

If you leave too many games you get punished by severely reducing the amount of XP you get until you get back above a certain threshold.

[Woobels]

I wish Blizzard did a better job of enforcing the meta they created.

I have never had fun with bad heroes in my team, and the matchmaking is stupid enough that I still get a bunch of rank 50 or lower garbage players who don't grasp how bad it is to pick something like Mei when the rest of the team is in the 70s in rank.

[ThatsOurEric]

Just got set up against a group where the lowest level of the enemy team was in the 100's, and the
highest was in the 400's. Four of them were a pre-made.

Only two people in mine were over 100, and the rest were very spread out in levels. You can imagine
how the match went. :/

[Deleted]

Just got set up against a group where the lowest level of the enemy team was in the 100's, and the
highest was in the 400's. Four of them were a pre-made.

Only two people in mine were over 100, and the rest were very spread out in levels. You can imagine
how the match went. :/

How did it go? Levels has no merits when it comes to matchmaking, it's just gonna tilt you if you think a level 433 person is better than a 133 person

[Mormolyce]

Feel like I'm up one bar for every win and down three on every loss