How does matchmaking work?

General Discussion
21

every match in counter strike is a chest-to-chest battle?
i don’t know, I’m really asking

22

what do you mean chest to chest battle?

23

when there’s no one side stomping, you stomp them a little, they stomp you a little…close call

24

Being as a match is best out of 30 rounds then you will find it balances itself out over the course of the game. As long as people arent using hacks. On any map one side does have an advantage, but because you switch after 15 rounds if you are losing big you know your advantage is coming at some point. The ranking system also seems to work a lot better as a high end player can’t group with low players and gain an advantage that way.

The system on overwatch doesn’t give you that kind of balance, A good player will dominate a game and then thats it, game over.

25

the advantage of the maps apply to overwatch too…they do that on ranked, first defense then offense…
how do you know if the ranking system works better if you haven’t played ranked yet? i have seen many people saying they are exactly where they belong, in terms of rank…actually i have never seen someone say “i deserved a higher rank”
i think you need to give it more time, when you have one Pharah who is killing everyone it’s not a problem in the game balance/matchmaking…she just needs to be countered…and if it’s a very good player, still very killable with a coordinated effort
when the torbjorn turret is dropping players like flies is it a balance/matchmaking problem? that thing has 300 hp, if 1 player focus on it i can’t outheal/repair the damage with the hammer, and yet…there are many games where they ignore it, and they die :joy: did i dominate the game? it was all AI :joy:

26

Qp and arcade: tries to put you in a match as fast as possible. No metrics are entered

Competitive: Puts you in a match were your skill is about the same. Sr gains or loses are calculated based on your mmr and if you were the underdog or not

Level is never accounted for in any match maker
Anything else that you hear is baloney

27

something is

Matchmaking in Quick Play is much looser as we want games to be fast. If you’re looking for tighter matches, head to Competitive Play.
from the official @PlayOverwatch twitter

28

I get that you need to counter a hero, but how do you learn to counter anybody when players are so much better than yourself and you barely see them coming, It’s not just pharah either I’ve seen mei be unstobbable in matches and other heroes too.

If I can’t get a decent matchup in qp (again as a new player) why would I stick around long enough to level enough to reach ranked match play. I don’t, I just turn it off and play counter strike.

again I’ll go to my goto game. we also have a casual mode that is more evenly balanced than this, even in that nobody really runs away with a game, unless they are using hacks. and that is what i’m using as my comparison, the casual mode (or qp).

Any game always needs to bring in new players and then keep them around or it dies (look at pubg which stoppped selling many copies and is now dying) so when your new players have to play unbalanced qp constantly due to level restrictions why would they?

yet when you choose qp (as I have too) it says you will be matched up on a similar level, and that is coming from the game itself. So are yu saying the game itself is baloney as thats where I have read it.

29

QP doesn’t have matchmaking. I’ve tested it personally. While my competitive rank was around 3400-3500 I played QP constantly for a week or so with Soldier. Won most of my games, got incredible stats, kept playing with and against players in the 2400-2700 range. Why? Not because my mmr was so bad but because 2400-2700 is where most people are.

Make of that what you will.

30

Exactly because of your MMR. Your SR isn’t your MMR and you’re not matched up against opponents based on your SR. The system only considers SR as a visual representation of your achievements on the ladder so it’s only a visual reward.

Every gamemode has different MMR. If you’re top500 in competitive and queue into Mystery Heroes or FFA for the first time ever you’re not going to play against even diamond players. The top500 player is going to roll and smoke a lot of players until the MMR will adjust accordingly. This can take up to 2 days of grinding, not 4 hours like the officials make it seem like. In other words you’re playing with and against players from 2400-2700 range because that’s your QP MMR

EDIT: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20760837867#post-3

1 Like
31

Completely false. Both of these gamemodes have their on independent MMR and the only time these MMR values consider other gamemodes is when competitive copies your QP MMR as you play your placement games for the first time ever

EDIT: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20760837867#post-3

These are true. On top of that up to diamond rank your SR gain/loss ratio if effected by your performance when compared to average success on the hero that you play with. If you manage to heal as much as a master player while you’re in platinum you’ll get a nice boost in your SR, but as soon as you hit diamond this doesn’t effect you anymore.

1 Like
32

so the game developers are falsely advertising this when you select qp? I doubt that as americans would be able to sue over the fact it is false advertising whenever they want.

33

Did you even read what I said? I said a whole week of grinding did not move my “MMR” one bit.

34

Then you’ve either peformed on 2400-2700SR level, haven’t grinded enough or are lying. Pick your poison

EDIT: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20760837867#post-3

35

Or maybe you are lying?

36

You are entitled to not believe me so I’ll just leave these here: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20745504371
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20758885930

37

Can you show me that message.

Yea no, while it’s true that your first quickplay matches decide your competitive mmr it itself does not have one on it’s own

If you can link me to a post from a dev saying otherwise go right ahead

38

Players need to see the difference a bad player (and a mechanical skilled player)
You can have over 600lvls and still be plat just like me. Or you join overwatch with already good aim (just as example) and be playing against much higher gametime players that can hold up to your aim with gamesense, positioning etc.
Theyr level just shows you how much they’ve played. So you kinda need to get a touch for it to know where you are. And if you’re already about master for the system after some qp then you’ll face +/- master players.

I’ve played a lot and was long in gold/silver until i stopped to do so many failures to stay platin.
Since I’m playing with dia+ in qp (Playing with higher ranked friends) they always seem to be pro’s compared to me. Playing solo at the other hand let’s me believe they are braindead like me after having a smoke. But I still can’t really hard carry.

TL;DR
you always face better and worse players than you self are.
Just think when you’re at a harder match that the system wants to see if you could compete in a higher tier. Or if you’re still not ready for it.
(i know, seems stupid as you should be playing on your level, not a higher one.)

39

Here you go:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20760837867#post-3

40

More like the forums have players who don’t even know how the game they’ve played for 400hrs works and then rather than looking up what’s going on they come here to speak whatever they come up with.