Obviously, nolive service game updateis going to leave absolutely everyone happy. That’s a given. There will always be the loud players who are unhappy with just about everything, or who just want to find a problem with each and every game no matter how far it’s come. But at this point,nobody’s really happywithOverwatch 2’s ranked system, so even though it’sverylate in the game for one (pun only partially intended), it might be time for a full ranked reset.
The best time for one, of course, would have been with the launch of Overwatch 2. It would have been so easy to wipe the slate clean for people who had tanked their MMRs or were stuck in elo hell. Instead, at launch, comp dropped everyone’s ranks by two full levels, making it even more difficult for people to climb their way out of that hole. It was discouraging for returning players who wanted a new shot at the game, to say the very least. Watching your account drop from gold to bronze or diamond to gold is a pretty massive decrease, not to mention a hit to the ego, even if everyone else is dropping, too.
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Now, with the newest ranked changes, players' comp ranks have been changed again, and the changes were anything but intuitive. When the new ranks were announced, the Overwatch community fell into chaos: charts and graphs were made, ranked changes were posted en masse in Discord servers, and Twitter was flooded with people wondering why and how their ranks had changedsomuch just from one ranked update.
This time, they’ve been made the equivalent of players' hidden MMRs, Overwatch 2’s internal system that keeps track of where you shouldreallybe placed skill-wise. Ideally, this change could be better for the health of the ranked system in the long run, since there’s really no point in a “hidden MMR” system; if that’s where the game secretly thinks you belong, then why shouldn’t you be put there directly? I don’t really see a point in being beholden to a system that only allows you to climb incrementally, win-by-win, when you should be able to just be the rank you’re meant to be.
If the hidden MMRs are still part of the problem for some players, though, then this change doesn’t really fix things. It might keep you from being put in game with people several ranks above you, but it doesn’t fix the core ofthe matchmaking problem: that bad games that are out of your control or a rough run can really affect your chances to climb. It also doesn’t address new accounts joining to stomp lower ranks just to feel something, though the 50-win threshold does help with that somewhat (even if it won’t stop more determined players).
If the best time for a full reset was with the launch of Overwatch 2, the second-best time is now. At this point, when so much of the fan base is dissatisfied with the way ranked inherently functions, it might be time to go back to the drawing board entirely. Matchmaking is no easy feat, but at some point, something’s gotta give.
