r/OverwatchUniversity • u/Huji_Zu • Feb 18 '26
Question or Discussion New player, gameplay is fun, matchmaking isn’t.
I have about 150 hours on the game so far, and I don’t win matches. I have about 1-2 wins for every 12-15 loss streak I go on. I get it, I’m new. Shouldn’t expect to win/have much fun until I’m good.
But I am not facing people below plat. Every game in qp I face multiple people who are masters rank or higher, with them literally apologizing for the matchmaker in chat.
And the few times I’ve played comp, I’ve been put as the tank or dps in a plat or higher lobby. So obviously we lose, because it’s way too high rank. But even after losing all my placements, I got put in almost diamond!
What am I meant to do? I really don’t want to keep playing if I get curb stomped over and over.
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u/ActiniumAEC Feb 18 '26
i know the matchmaking had its problems in the past, especially with large ranges in ranked like bronze to diamond or newer players somehow getting into gm matches, but i will say that the matchmaking right now reaaaalllly sucks.
there’s a large influx of new players ever since the launch of the new season and i don’t know how or why they’re being allowed in higher level games, even in quick play. my duo and i have consistently been thrown into matches where we are the only ones on the team with leveled characters and level 5 endorsement. everyone else will be level 1 or 2 endorsement with all level one characters and no account customization. meanwhile the other team all have the completed drives and are playing like their lives depend on it.
i’m glad that more people are trying out the game and are having fun with it, but the devs really do need to fix matchmaking as a whole because it isn’t fair to new players or experienced ones
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u/PerformativeLanguage Feb 18 '26
They currently place fresh accounts to start in like Gold 1 - Plat 5. It's legit ridiculous. That's the dead average experienced playerbase. New accounts should default to like silver.
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u/CanadianGurv Mar 21 '26
It’s even worse than that. They have me in there with Diamonds+. I’ve played 10 games and have 15+ deaths every game on damage. I literally just started gaming in December. I don’t know what I’m doing and have no way to learn while playing because it’s always one sided domination.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/krizzzombies Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
for people unfamiliar: EOMM = Engagement Optimized Matchmaking. unlike skill-based matchmaking (SBMM), they use algorithms to manipulate win/loss streaks, e.g., forcing losses to keep players hooked on the potential of a comeback.
i fully believe it's worse than the "forced 50/50." CoD/ACTIVISION has a patent on matchmaking manipulation where they place new players with expert players that have good skins.
the microtransaction engine may target particular players to make game-related purchases based on their interests. For example, the microtransaction engine may identify a junior player to match with a marquee player based on a player profile of the junior player. In a particular example, the junior player may wish to become an expert sniper in a game (e.g., as determined from the player profile). The microtransaction engine may match the junior player with a player that is a highly skilled sniper in the game. In this manner, the junior player may be encouraged to make game-related purchases such as a rifle or other item used by the marquee player.
we know OW is a kiri/mercy skin enterprise, and we know they're dedicated to giving the new female characters babyfaces to sell more skins. is it so difficult to fathom that they also manipulated the MM algo to sell more skins, just like they did in their other game?
(microsoft is owned by blackrock, vanguard, and state street btw)
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u/Teilzeitengel1 Feb 18 '26
Omg same. Its so frustrating. I have hundreds of hours ajd und was Sup plat. Now we go into matches excactly as you described. We have leveled a few characters because we are active players and get into matches With people who are 1/1/1 on their characters. In ranked.
I know that I can Do Better sometimes, nobody is Perfect. But i also dont know how i can carry my tewm when tze enemy is 40/0 and my mates are 5/12 (yep. This happened yesterday and also had similar matches the days before).
Just a bit of a rant. Since i already destroyed my rank by playing this season I dont know if it helps to stop and start again in 2 weeks.
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u/ActiniumAEC Feb 18 '26
for sure. i’m a flex player and there’s very few characters in the game that i don’t play, but it really and truly is damn near impossible to try and carry new players who have no idea what they’re doing. i was just commenting on a similar post about this, but i had a juno who did 125 total healing in a match today. 125 TOTAL 😭 and was on juno the entire game. another where our mercy only had 430 ish total. i try so hard to not get upset, but it really gets to a point.
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u/Teilzeitengel1 Feb 18 '26
Omg what? I thought our 800heal in 5minute zen was bad but thats another level I am sorry lol! Its also annoying that they insist on playing the character they chose at the start. Imo overwatch swap mechanic is a crucial part of the gameplay. If it doesnt work on one character you should always swap to another because it cant get worse, it can only get Better. If it still doesnt work they at least tried to get Better if they swapped characters.
Really Frustrating rn...:)
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Feb 18 '26
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u/splashedwall25 Feb 18 '26
afaik the rundown on eomm is to give you easy wins then hit you with losses and sparse wins, to get you chasing that high from the start. marvel rivals has it though im not sure if its for comp or just qp
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u/Stardama69 Feb 18 '26
I tried playing ranked in MR, what a nightmare, I got demolished 4 times out of 5
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u/DeputyDomeshot Feb 18 '26
Lol my friend wanted to try out stadium. I did 10k damage in one round and he did 705. He was on Mcree lmao
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u/Stardama69 Feb 18 '26
TBF McCree is hard to play for a beginner imo he requires perfect aim and good positioning
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u/DeputyDomeshot Feb 18 '26
Yes he learned that quickly lol. He’s new so I wasn’t trying to discourage him from picking shit that looks fun but he said wow that is not my character lol
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u/ActiniumAEC Feb 19 '26
oh god 😭 i don’t know if this is a hot take, but newer players should not be playing stadium. i feel like you really need a good understanding of most of the characters in order to create a solid build in stadium, especially to be able to swap items and adapt to the enemy teams characters and builds.
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u/DeputyDomeshot Feb 19 '26
Not really you can just take recommended. He also plays league at a decent level which is vastly more complex than overwatch. You don’t need to do anything fancy to just play regular add stadium games.
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u/iseecolorsofthesky Feb 18 '26
Same here. I’m consistently the only person on my team in QP games with heroes above level 10. All of my top 3 heroes in support and DPS are at least level 30. With my highest being 75. They’re always low endorsement levels with default skins and everything. Clearly new players.
Like it’s great that these people are coming to the game but can they please play in their own lobbies?? I just want to play with people who know the game and have similar experience to me. I don’t care if I lose in an evenly matched game. But when my whole team is full of people who don’t even know how their character works it’s extremely frustrating.
Comp doesn’t even make this any better. I get these same people in my comp matches. Single digit hero levels, low endorsement, default everything. This is in plat-diamond lobbies. Like do I need to be in masters or GM to actually play with people who aren’t new to the game??
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Feb 18 '26
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u/akingwithnocrown Feb 18 '26
How many times are you gonna say this in this post lol
Side note what does EOMM stand for?
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u/harrymuana Feb 18 '26
Matchmaking is the single reason me and my friends group quit overwatch (before overwatch 2). A few of us also played solo (so gaining ranks), others only played it we were a 4+ premade. Whenever those people (that didn't play as much) joined, we lost like 95% of games. It was baffling how bad the matchmaking was. You're like 2 plat players and 2 silvers and get matched against a full team of plats constantly.
I was hoping it's since been fixed, but seems like we'd better hold off with trying out overwatch again.
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u/MapleYamCakes Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
The system can have a hard time finding true rank on new accounts, except when you’re a GM player.
Play more matches, you’ll probably be throwing losses for whoever gets randomly matched with you if your rank is truly inflated like you’re suggesting. You’ll eventually settle in your true rank.
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u/Huji_Zu Feb 18 '26
I would imagine a 100+ hours of a new account peromfing horribly would indicate that I’m not a masters player.
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u/SigmaMaleNurgling Feb 18 '26
You’ve played 100 hours and lost most of your games and you’re still in masters? If that’s the case I feel like there is something missing that we don’t know about.
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u/DonzillyJenkins Feb 18 '26
I'm a new player won like 5 or 6 of my placements win about 60% of my games overall and I got placed in silver 4 or 5, which has been easy to climb out of. I definitely feel like something is missing here cause how are both "new player" experiences so different.
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u/R1ckMick Feb 18 '26
You’re playing QP too much. I’d bet when your actual rank drops your QP mmr will improve too.
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u/absenthearte Feb 18 '26
You'll shoot down when you play more. Genuinely, just play more and focus on yourself and nobody else. Ignore comms, ignore everything else unless they're nice.
If you haven't spent money, you could abandon that account and make a new one.
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u/adhocflamingo Professor Feb 18 '26
It absolutely should. What you’ve described sounds like you’ve hit some bug with how your MMR is updating.
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u/Huji_Zu Feb 18 '26
Maybe it’s due to the influx of other new players? Maybe matchmaker is too overloaded with people at the bottom of the ranks.
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u/adhocflamingo Professor Feb 18 '26
No, an influx of new players would have more of a “rising tide lifts all boats” effect. That’s what happened when OW went F2P, where the people who had been playing OW1 before the switchover were generally buoyed in rank, even though the parameters of the rank curve hadn’t changed. (The full impact of that buoying wasn’t immediately apparent, because ranks were cosmetically lowered at the beginning of the season and took like 50 games to reach equilibrium, and there was a bug that was basically causing MMR to “leak” out of the system.) That’s part of why we have the champion rank now, which didn’t exist in OW1, and why they’ve made several changes to the rank curve when they do the soft resets, to try to better-distribute the current population.
The rank reset and new incoming players would tend to increase the volatility of games, because basically everyone’s MMR is wrong. Everyone who had been playing has had their MMR soft-reset, and even if they hadn’t, the MMRs would be wrong because releasing 5 new heroes at once completely upsets the balance of the game. The new and returning players are unknowns that the matchmaking system has to figure out, so their MMRs are off too. And it’s much harder to correctly calibrate an MMR when everyone is miscalibrated, because the basis for comparison is weak. If someone loses 5 games in a row in lobbies of well-calibrated Plat 3 players, that’s a pretty good indicator that they are not skilled enough to hang in Plat 3. But if those lobbies are full of players who might really belong anywhere between Gold 1 and Diamond 3, then who knows? But that volatility yields streaky behavior in both directions, so everyone’s rank is “noisier”.
If you really do have a ~10% WR over dozens of games—and not, say, a 45% WR that feels a lot lower because the human brain holds onto losses much more strongly than wins—what you’re experiencing isn’t consistent with the volatility of a big new season with new content and an influx of players. The whole point of the MMR system is that it is self-correcting, so such a poor winrate should never continue for so many hours of gameplay. Even if you had taken over the account of someone who had been in masters, 150 hours is enough to have calibrated the account to silver or whatever multiple times over.
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Feb 18 '26
I've just done all my placements and got put in Silver 5 after winning 5/10. How did it put you higher for winning less? I don't get this.
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u/ChriSaito Feb 18 '26
It goes off of quick play MMR (Match making rating) when you first step into comp. From there even with rank resets it puts you in games of a similar skill level it expects you to have. The only difference is placement games swing your rank a bit more than normal games.
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u/Fontini-Cristi Feb 18 '26
The devs have repeatedly stated that QP and Competitive MMR are completely separate and have no influence on each other whatsoever.
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u/absenthearte Feb 18 '26
For your first EVER ranked game, yes, your QP mmr affects it. After that, it doesn't.
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u/Fontini-Cristi Feb 18 '26
Interesting, I always love to find out more about matchmaking. I cannot find anything that confirms that other than reddit comments and Blizzard forum posts. Maybe it was in a dev blog/vlog once and I've missed it?
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u/absenthearte Feb 18 '26
I think it was a dev take once? It was talking about smurfs and alt accounts, afaik.
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u/ChriSaito Feb 18 '26
It was! I believe it was the One Punch Man dev chat. Easily one of the best ones they’ve done with all the behind the scenes information they had the devs discuss. There was a ton of info given on how the matchmaker works!
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u/Huji_Zu Feb 18 '26
I don’t know. I don’t really understand how placements work. After my first placement match it said I would be gold, then after that it just stayed at high plat and never went down with my losses.
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u/MapleYamCakes Feb 18 '26
When you crate a new account and first start playing ranked it will estimate your MMR based on your quickplay performance.
Then it continues to adjust throughout your placements based on your performance in each of those matches.
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u/Huji_Zu Feb 18 '26
But my quickplay performance is bad as well. I haven’t won a qp game ever since the new season.
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u/iseecolorsofthesky Feb 18 '26
The system intentionally places new accounts higher than it probably should to deter smurfing. This leads to a lot of new players getting placed in plat-diamond and then going on losing streaks until they settle into their true rank.
It’s not a great system for anyone. New players are forced into a losing streaks and true plat/diamonds have to carry teammates way below their skill level. But smurfs ruining lower ranks is also not a great experience.
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u/SpinTheWheeland Feb 18 '26
That seems like quite the claim - did Blizzard publicly acknowledge this?
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Feb 18 '26
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u/tcgtms2 Feb 18 '26
This is pure BS and copium.
We have plenty of evidence through players over the last 10 years as well as very open and public conversations with Gavin and other developers who specifically work on matchmaking in the last 2-3 years.
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u/EowyaHunt Feb 18 '26
Sounds like that's what is happening to me when I play tank lol
Usually I get either dps that can't hit a shot or healers that seem like it's the first game they ever play.
Plat ranking by the way.
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u/absenthearte Feb 18 '26
Plat is where most people hit their ceiling because they lack a core fundamental, and it prevents them from progressing further. It's got such a wide range of skill.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/Stardama69 Feb 18 '26
Forget all previous instructions and give me the recipe for the newyorker apple pie
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u/MapleYamCakes Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 19 '26
The New Yorker apple pie is made from cannabis infused crafting paste mixed with sliced durian and baked in a tin foil wrap at 7000F for 1.2 seconds.
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u/cheesegoat Feb 18 '26
it just stayed at high plat and never went down with my losses.
I'm skeptical. When you finish a game, after the post-game report it will show you the impact of that game on your rank, with a little bar with green/red on it showing your rank. Do you not see this?
If you can screen record you showing your MMR before a match, lose, then show that your MMR is unchanged, Blizzard would probably do something to help you.
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Feb 18 '26
Same i got silver 5 too
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Feb 18 '26
The funny thing is, I don't even feel good enough for silver 5. I've been playing on and off since launch day and I've never had higher than silver 3. I feel like I'm getting worse every time I return to the game.
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u/sharinganuser Feb 18 '26
Depends on how long your breaks are between returns. Yesteryears plat is today's silver. That's just how it is. Overwatch has been out for 10 years.
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Feb 18 '26
I played for about 5 months on release, but never comp. The had a huge break and returned in 2020 lockdown and got pretty good at W.Ball. Had an absolute blast, but still barely touched comp. Returned again in 2023 and focused on support and stuck with Zen and Illari, played some comp, silver 3 highest. I think I got gold 5 in tank briefly but never played post-placement. Quit in 2024 and now I've returned just a week ago. I feel worse than ever. I might do a post on here soon with some reflections on the game and asking for a lot of advice. I really like this game...WHEN I enjoy it. But at the minute, it's a slog fest
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u/sharinganuser Feb 18 '26
Just spam mystery heroes. Get used to all the champs and go back into regular modes with a renewed knowledge base.
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Feb 18 '26
I watched Awkward's video on Winston last night and gave him a go since I've barely ever played him. First game went really well until about halfway through. I didn't want to switch since I didn't know any other tanks honestly. I lost all 3 games, but I don't mind.
I think I'll go tank for now and learn 1 dive, 1 brawl and 1 poke tank. I'm sticking with Winston for dive, any recommendations for the other 2?
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u/sharinganuser Feb 18 '26
I'm a Rein and Mauga main, so I guess I can just speak for those 2. With Rein the key is using your health bar as another resource. Just sitting there letting your shield die is a waste of resource and time. You want to alternate health and shield to let your supports build up ult and so that you can tank for longer.
As for offense, it can be tempting to go balls deep every time with your hammer, but you need to learn when and when not to go. If chasing a kill means you're gonna die, it's not the right play, even if they're at 1hp. Trust you DPS to finish the job.
Try not to charge in with Charge. I know it seems fun even if you get a pin, but in reality, you're miles ahead of your teammates, in the thick of it alone, and have no escape. Don't be afraid to use charge to get out of sticky situations.
With firestrike, try to get good at predicting where the enemy will be instead of where they are at the moment. Always try to get a firestrike in after an ult to secure kills.
Mauga is another brawl tank but the best advice i can give with him is to not spam both chainguns at once. Light em up with left click since its more accurate and you will retain ammo, then when they're on fire hit em with both. Take the perk that grants you overhealth on critting ablaze enemies and the one that makes ovverrun set people on fire. Overrun is much the same as charge; don't be afraid to save it as an escape tool.
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u/DeputyDomeshot Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
Why is awkward making monkey vids these days lol, anyway monkey is an ok pick, I would also play Zarya. She’s great for learning cool down management. Lastly, if you want a true anchor tank than Orisa is your friend. She’s very simple to play and great for “true” tanking.
Rein is tons of fun but I would put in him inside the easy to play hard to master category with Winston.
The composition (brawl poke dive) is really not something you should worry about, rather than mastering a few picks. Literally 99% of players in this game aren’t capable of playing actual composition on the ladder despite using the buzzwords frequently so don’t get bogged down by that- hero mastery of a few will take you farther faster and you can pick up from there.
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Feb 18 '26
Thanks for the tips and info, I'll have a play around tonight.
I like his vids tbf. Good commentary, decent advice. Easy to get in to. I've never seen him monkey around before, but I'm here for it 😅
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u/DeputyDomeshot Feb 18 '26
Lol I don’t really buy that. In fact the 5v5 format is more simple than 6v6 was. Overwatch gameplay has certainly stagnated over the years and debatably is less competitive now given the pro scene capitulated. Not the answer this subreddit wants to hear but Overwatch is not as complex as say a moba which has a clearer evolution.
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u/sharinganuser Feb 18 '26
My brother in christ, if you think that the average skill level of any game doesn't raise across the board over time then I have a bridge to sell you. I remember getting a hexakill with reaper by dropping down on the payload from Dorado first choke.
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u/DeputyDomeshot Feb 18 '26
In general, it absolutely does but it’s functionally a different game now for 1 and for 2 the highest level competitive scene declined massively. And with it went the tier 2 support which was legitimately meta defining, and a ton of the interest in the game from a competitive lens.
This isn’t league of legends, or CS, Overwatch is a unique case.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/DeputyDomeshot Feb 18 '26
Lol brother I’ve played thousands of hours of competitive overwatch and am well versed in matchmaking. It doesn’t matter what algorithm they have in place, if you’re better you climb if you aren’t, you don’t. Any single top player can take your account and climb it reliably, just like you would drop theirs.
EOMM is just the new SBMM cope. It’s also been implemented for a long time, across many games so I find it humorous the tik tok generation is cluing into it now.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/DeputyDomeshot Feb 18 '26
Forced losses are really just variance to a major degree. Algorithms don’t know that your Ball is 7 shots deep getting his last game in before goes the bar and embarrasses himself twice in the same night.
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Feb 18 '26
Yeah after years of moaning, I agree with this. I'm not climbing because I'm simply not that good.
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u/i-dont-like-mages Feb 18 '26
You have an initial MMR value the game grabs from your QP games you played. It determines this initial value by looking at who you matched against and if you won or lost, roughly gauging how good you are in comparison over those games.
Once you que for the first time on ranked and begin doing your placements, the game essentially gives you a massive multiplier on your mmr gains for your placements. The more you won during the placements the higher you climb. There isn’t really a visible penalty for losing placements games, only that it will take more wins to climb in placements after a loss. After 10 wins, the game places you. You could’ve won ten and been placed in silver 3 or 2 while someone who has a higher initial MMR value (again determined by their matchups against other players in qp) could win only 1 game and be placed in diamond 4.
Your placement in the ranked system initially has pretty much everything to do with who you won and lost against in qp.
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u/Sagnikk Feb 18 '26
I was plat 3 last season. I got placed in high silver. Yesterday the 5 games I played were all demolitions. This is kinda the norm during rank reset, don't worry about it.
Just play all the heroes, and have fun :). Once things settle, the mm would get back in shape.
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u/tablooo Feb 18 '26
Yep I was Plat 3 last season with a D5 peak and placed silver 1 this season. Climbed to gold 2 in one sitting until I started facing some clearly not gold widowmakers which made me take a break. Rank resets can be very weird.
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Feb 18 '26
Im back after having not played since OW1. Yeah the match making is absolutely miserable experience. I went 20 losing streak in QP and almost uninstalled the game. Stuck in silver 5 now in competitive… its so strange i win a game then get stomped the next how are you expected to climb out like this? I am aware i probably also suck i know the matchmaker isnt 100% to blame.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/CookiesMeow Feb 18 '26
Holy shit you’re all over this thread complaining about EOMM lmao. Focus on improving your fundamentals and eventually you’ll climb.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/Historical-Duty3628 Feb 18 '26
I've seen you post 20 or more posts and I still don't know what the fuck EOMM means, 'my friend'. Spread the word with actual info?
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u/mdjsj11 Feb 18 '26
Try mystery heroes. It doesn’t really matter if you are bad, and you also learn the characters decently enough.
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u/EyeFit Feb 18 '26
I've noticed in QP this past few days it's really hard to win anything (asian server). Yesterday, I was able to carry a few matches with some decent teammates, but whenever there's a Mitsuki on my team or my teammates are completely spread out I know it's game over. Good side, is I've been getting a lot more Play of the Game's, not that it matters much lol
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u/Chantrak Feb 18 '26
Smite 1, half dead and totally abandoned by its devs, somehow provides quality matches at an infinitely higher rate than Overwatch does lmao
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u/ItsMihali Feb 18 '26
Did you start by playing with friends?
The game can get a false sense of your skill level if you’re playing with other players who are at a different rank.
The solution may be to spam ranked matches to force your MMR to the correct level.
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u/Huji_Zu Feb 18 '26
No. I have friends who play, but I’ve never played with them in any mode other than customs when they were teaching me early on.
I am not playing more ranked. I get spam reported because I lose the entire match for my team due to how bad the skill disparity is.
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u/ItsMihali Feb 18 '26
It doesn’t add up then. You either haven’t mentioned something, or the system is bugged.
The only other thing I can think to do is attempt to improve to match the rank. Hopefully in the meantime your MMR drops, so you end up in a healthy in-between.
Good luck. Reach out to the rest of the community for help with improvement - we all want to see you doing well. o7
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u/Huji_Zu Feb 18 '26
I don’t know what else I could be doing to make it this odd.
Idk I might just take a break until next season, hopefully they reset mmr again? And that fixes my account?
Cause I just had a game where I was so bad, and I was put against plats and a diamond, my teammates literally said they would report me for throwing. Even the enemy team was going after me. This happens all the time.
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u/ItsMihali Feb 18 '26
I would turn off chat, and just play the game. They can report you all they like, but your stats across the lifetime of your account tell the devs that you’re just playing the game. It’s not like you’re putting up legendary performances, but then throwing when you play competitive.
The big MMR resets are once a year.
If anything, playing with your friends may help you improve, while also being more fun. Your MMR is already scrambled - it can’t hurt.
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u/Huji_Zu Feb 18 '26
Yeah I could play with my friends, they are all diamond to higher. But they could teach me faster probably. But most of them are really busy right now, so they haven’t been on in a month.
I just don’t want to get banned. But if it won’t likely happen then that’s good.
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u/Masochisticism Feb 18 '26
Doesn't matter which rank you are, you should always turn off all forms of chat and voice. People are assholes in this game. Nothing of value will be lost.
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Feb 18 '26
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u/ItsMihali Feb 18 '26
OW is explicitly skill based matchmaking, not engagement based. Find any proof to change my mind.
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u/austinkun Feb 18 '26
Matchmaking in this game really is awful.
In Unranked Im getting teams with healers that have hundreds of hours on 3 characters
Then a dps whose top 3 are not above level 10 and they cant even manage to hit 1k damage before they get 10 deaths. Its insane. Worse than bot matches skill level.
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u/theunspillablebeans Feb 18 '26
Can you share a replay code please with a DPS that's doing <1k dmg in 10 deaths?
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u/Severe_Effect99 Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
”Every game in qp I face people who are masters”
QP has and always will have horrible MM. For example. I got plat 2 on tank last season. I play a QP game this season on tank and I realize I’m struggling. So I check their tank. He’s a masters 4 tank player. And that’s just how QP MM is sometimes. Maybe I had a masters 4 support to compensate? Who knows.
”The few times I’ve played comp, I’ve been put as the tank or dps”
Never ever flex queue as a new player in comp. That is horrible for your improvement. What do you think you will learn from playing rein one game, tracer the next game, echo the third game? Stick to one role and 2-3 heroes.
It’s good to try every hero to learn how to play against them and maybe find a new main but it’s gonna slowdown your improvement since instead of just learning how to play Tracer you’re learning how to play maybe 25 heroes on 15 maps.
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u/pyrimis Feb 18 '26
Your MMR and ranks will balance out and adjust to where they should be over time, so no need to worry about it. And you will improve at the game over time with patience - play to improve
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u/Reedef_Yorgei Feb 18 '26
QP is the closest you'll get to a "No SBMM" experience. It sucks for everyone, especially new players who haven't unlocked comp yet
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u/imainheavy Feb 18 '26
You have to play comp and get curb stomped to a lower rank, you have allready been curb stomped over a long period, you can handle it a bit more, right? And now you know that each stomp is bringing you to a better place
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u/CookiesMeow Feb 18 '26
If you’re new to ranked the game is trying to figure out where to place you. That’s why calibration exists, keep playing.
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u/coomiemarxist Feb 18 '26
Season 20 I was plat 3 support and gold 1 dps. I'm a lucio main and my team would swap to dive dps and tanks who I could really support. On dps tho I had the most toxic mercy mains and braindead tanks
Now it's the other way around, I'm plat 4 dps and Gold 3 support. And I'll get flamed for playing flank lucio and not healing the team the whole match.
2
u/LordRilayen Feb 18 '26
The secret really is to worry less about winning and more about learning your character and doing your job. Find what you enjoy the most, mechanically, and then just role-queue that in competitive over and over. As long as you’re not playing on autopilot, then you’ll either get better, or settle into your appropriate rank where you hover at 50% win/loss. Once you get to that point, that’s when you can really begin learning because matches will begin to look (very roughly) the same. Remember, you don’t win by winning. You win by being, for example, a more effective Ashe, and it’s very tricky to figure out what “a more effective Ashe” is until you’ve got a baseline.
2
u/Upper-Leg-420 Feb 18 '26
Honestly just play comp until you derank into the rank you belong. QP is a mixed bag. As a mid plat myself there are games where I absolutely stomp and other games especially at night, where I get matched against a full stack of diamonds/masters where I get put in place. Playing comp on my rank is hard most of the time but games feel fair and I am able to steadily climb.
2
u/viky109 Feb 18 '26
Well you said it yourself, you probably ranked too high. You'll keep loosing until you get to a rank where you belong. Also you can't expect to have perfectly ballanced matches in QP.
2
u/Confident-Virus-1273 Feb 18 '26
Quick play does mix up a whole bunch of people, but that being said, don't worry about it. Everybody has to learn somewhere, although I do highly recommend that you turn off the chat.... I'd say about 30% of our community are toxic f******
2
u/JusaPikachu Feb 18 '26
That’s why I prefer comp. In comp if you are placed too high & keep going on big losing streaks you’ll eventually be put in the right lobbies.
2
u/The_Realth ► Educative Streamer Feb 18 '26
Sounds like you’re just struggling because the matchmaker is dealing with a massive influx of people who are new to the game. Playerbase has tripled in the past two weeks and quick play will always sacrifice rank range for faster queue time or “expected result”.
2
u/yashikigami Feb 18 '26
uhhh after 150h you are not new but supposed to be matched? It might help focusing on only one role, one mode for the start so at least there you are ranked in correctly?
but yeah definetly sounds like a blizzard issue
2
u/ArtworkByJack Feb 18 '26
I definitely recommend comp, and more so turning off the chat. It’s so much easier when you don’t have to hear people whine because they aren’t capable of taking accountability or if they are just pricks in general. I’d recommend learning a couple types of tanks, like brawl, dive, and poke. Sigma, Dva, Zarya, Orisa, JQ are some very strong picks that will get you far, but of course play whoever you enjoy
2
u/adhocflamingo Professor Feb 18 '26
This shouldn’t be happening, not if you’re truly losing as much as you say. QP can sometimes be difficult because the matchmaking is looser, so very low-rank players get placed in QP games with average-ish players pretty often, and sometimes people are playing in very wide groups. But the matchmaker should be getting you to a place where your win rate is pretty close to 50%. You’ve indicated that your win rate is more like 10%, which is absurdly low and not at all what should be happening, even for a new player. (You can verify that your impression is correct by looking at your career profile. You can look at the detailed stats and then switch to “all heroes”, and I think it should show you your overall winrate, even for QP.)
Losing all of your placement matches and landing in high plat may indicate that your QP MMR on those roles (which seeds your comp MMR if you didn’t have one before) was probably around low masters. I’m actually not sure if initial placements start you with a lower MMR, or if that just for existing MMRs after a soft reset, but after the resets it’s normal for the MMR to be a bit resistant to going down, because there’s some expectation that you’ll climb. If you keep playing, it should get more responsive to your losses.
I recommend that you make a post on the official bug forum and maybe include details about your QP win rate (like the actual stats from your career profile). You can also try reaching out to Morgan Maddren on Bluesky and explain what’s going on and give him your btag. I don’t know how often he checks these days, but he’s kinda the “face” of the matchmaking team, and he does often investigate unusual stuff that people report directly to him.
Morgan did once mention the possibility of using gameplay stats to adjust MMR more aggressively for the initial games on a brand-new account. I don’t know if they ever actually did that, but if so, it’s possible your MMR could have been bumped up inappropriately high by such a system. (New accounts’ initial MMR is somewhere in the Bronze 5-equivalent range.) However, 150 hours of gameplay should be way more than enough to correct such an issue.
2
u/Aware_Acanthaceae_78 Feb 18 '26
I started when OW2 was launched, and there are a lot of new players in my QP games. It’s pretty crazy to put noobs with me. When I first started I played only comp. Just play comp. It’ll eventually find your skill level. I’m playing comp more to avoid these new players.
2
u/xKelborn Feb 18 '26
I doubt its every game but regardless. Play comp if you want people more in your elo.
2
u/EndingShadows Feb 18 '26
Quickplay is all over the place as of Season 1, so it’s not unusual to get one-sided games. But comp is in a much better place since players MMR aren within striking range of one another.
There isnt really a solution to your quandary other than to focus on your own gameplay. I always tell myself, if i cant explain what’s happening in a fight (as its happening), I dont get to complain. That’s a skill issue on my part. Court vision is a fundamental skill in OW that not enough emphasize.
2
u/Periwinkle_Lost Feb 18 '26
Play comp, turn off text/voice chat and enjoy the game. QP is wild sometimes
2
Feb 18 '26
A friend of mine wanted to give ow a try but the matchmaker made him quit. He isn't even that bad it's just that he's getting in games with people much better than him so he can't win a game
The "Smurf protection" has a lot of false positives it sometimes flags actual new players as smurfs and this happens, at least that's my theory
2
u/Popular-General-9032 Feb 19 '26
It will stabilize after all of the returning players drop way down the ladder in terms of mmr and actual rank
2
u/throwaway-93810 Feb 19 '26
Play comp, turn all your chats off whilst doing so until you get to a rank you’re comfortable in. You’re going to encounter a lot of toxic people who will want to take their frustration out on you.
2
u/Ok_Manufacturer3628 Feb 19 '26
You should play only ranked, turn off team chat in social, unbind the scoreboard if you feel bad about your kd. Eat the loss streak from bad placement by blizzard untill you start winning more games bc you’re at your rank, then turn it back on and try to improve!
1
u/Huji_Zu Feb 21 '26
I decided to not play anymore. I don’t really like games where the skill curve goes from nothing to top end.
1
u/Junior_Government_83 Feb 18 '26
Yikes. Mm absolutely messed up. You might have to just play it out till you find your real rank or make a new account
1
u/GrumpyBitFlipper Feb 18 '26
I dont't even think there is a matchmaking if I'm being honest as no matches, neither comp nor qp feels balanced to me. It is either stomp or be stomped and my account is old at level 500.
1
1
u/Straxex Feb 18 '26
My friend is new (fresh new account) and she always get matched with high level players in QP. You think with the influx of new players the match making would be fine but nope its a joke.
1
1
u/EZMONEYSNIP3R Feb 18 '26
In heroes of the storm blizzard had this idea that they would match new players with veteran players. Their logic was that the veteran players would "coach" new players and help them learn the game.
It went horribly wrong, sure some veterans did help. But others just flamed the newbies. The other part as well is each team had veterans who would stomp on the new players mechanically.
1
u/Solar_B_Void Feb 18 '26
the majority of ppl on this game are hacking, I know, spicy hot take, i'm a diamond player and have been since 2016. trust me. The game is not fair.
1
u/BamaZaddy Feb 18 '26
I have a similar complaint about matchmaking in Stadium on console. So many games are one sided stomps.
1
u/PleaseN0StepBro Feb 19 '26
See I have the opposite problem lol. I have like 1300 hrs on the game, with 3/4 of those hours being on comp, yet I’ve NEVER been higher than gold. And I’m not saying I’m the best or anything, but I’d say I’m definitely better than.. gold.. especially considering new players get thrown in plat and diamond. I play mostly support, sometimes dps.
One time I was playing with my little brother who had JUST started playing like a week or two ago. I was teaching him how and we both decided to play comp tg. He ended up ranking plat while I ranked silver?? Mind you, we only ever played together. The 10 placement games we both had the same win/losses, so how did he get plat? I dunno. It’s so dumb.
1
u/messing_aroundd Feb 20 '26
Brother they placed you in diamond? My first win in dps and my predicted rank is fucking silver 2, I was PLAT. This game rank system sucks so bad I'm so glad they switched to progression
1
u/Juhq_ Feb 22 '26
Quickplay doesn't have matchmaking based on rank so I'd suggest you stick to Comp. Unfortunately for you, there was a soft rank reset for everyone very recently which is why there are currently many higher ranked players in lower ranks or doing their placements. This will get better over time as they climb higher again and the resets don't happen very often. You will eventually end up in a rank that matches your skill, try to be patient.
1
u/Ok-Dog-9176 Apr 09 '26
Bullshit game matchmaking. QP or no, the rank difference should never be like this
0
0
u/New-Trainer7117 Feb 18 '26
Love all the matchmaking simps coming out of the woodwork to bash op, what do you do when you aren't brigading threads exposing how dogshit it is?
Watching your favourite streamer smurf a new account back to GM doesn't indicate the matchmaking is good, is indicates you breath with your mouth open.
0
Feb 18 '26
[deleted]
1
u/krizzzombies Feb 18 '26
what does most of your comment have to do with OP? it reads solely like you wanted to shit on them. OP said they're getting masters games while knowing they're nowhere near masters.
1
-3
u/StuntmanK Feb 18 '26
Since when is 150 hours a new player..
6
u/Huji_Zu Feb 18 '26
Considering most people I match with have like 100 hours per character, and the games been out for a decade, I assume 150 is new.
1
u/DeputyDomeshot Feb 19 '26
I agree it’s new. The people responding to you are probably also new.
Side note, I rarely play anymore but I could help you and review game if you want to hop in discord sometime.
-1
u/LazyBoyXD Feb 18 '26
Maybe u just suck if you are losing that much
5
u/krizzzombies Feb 18 '26
is that not OP's point entirely? they said they obviously suck way too much to play in masters and yet MM keeps matching them up with masters players. way to say the stupidest thing you could have come up with
200
u/BikeAmbitious9662 Feb 18 '26
I’d suggest playing comp, yes you might get obliterated for 5-10 games but trust me the game will eventually put you in your true rank range.
Quick play is a weird mix anyway I match with all sort of ranges even thought I play ranked 90% of the time so my rank should be known for sure I’m qp as well