Overwatch‘s competitive ranked mode (called Competitive Play) is now live, and it hasn’t entirely gone off without a hitch or twelve. Blizzard is attempting to address each issue as they come up, and they admit that they have several ideas how to make these ranked matches even better for all involved.
The first problem they had to tackle was with “leavers,” those who leave the match before completion. When that occurred, the Skill Rating would decrease for BOTH sides, as the game would note that that one side would have an extreme advantage over the other with the extra player. They have patched this issue so that Overwatch will no longer adjust the Skill Rating progress if someone drops out of the match.
At the same time, the game’s community manager acknowledged in the Overwatch forums that there have been problems with accurately explaining how the Skill Rating works.
Things like your team?s probability of success, your individual performance, and win/loss streaks can all affect how your Skill Rating is adjusted at the end of a match. These factors are there for a reason (to help make Skill Rating as accurate as possible), but we know that it?s not always clear right now why your Skill Rating is adjusted the way it is.
That?s a concern for us, because we not only want Skill Rating to be accurate, but also for it to make sense. The fact that it doesn?t is good feedback for us, and seeing how we can make Skill Rating feel better/be cleare...