Overwatch players in low-density regions are allegedly gaming the competitive matchmaking system for unreal rankings and win rates.
Overwatch
On Reddit and Battle.net forums, Brazilian Overwatch players in particular are concerned about a few Masters-ranked teams whose performance ratings are through the roof. Many are among the region’s top 500 players, lingering in the top two per cent of kill/death ratios or the top 90 per cent of damage output. It looks remarkable, and while they’re probably great at Overwatch, the more likely reason behind their startling success is exploiting the competitive matchmaking system.
Brazilians players allege that six-stacks queue up for competitive matches in the very early morning. Then, fewer competitive players are online, so they’d be matched against lower-ranked players. It’s no contest. Their competitors are crushed, thereby increasing their rating.
Also, six-person teams who play together regularly tend to perform better than patched-together groups of two or three. By queuing up as a full team, they have a strong advantage. In one particularly egregious example, a Brazilian six-stack with a 4439 CR was matched against a rag-tag team with a 2709 CR. Guess who won.
Blizzard did not respond to our request for comment.
Players have reported this happening around Melbourne, Australia as well. Overwatch players are furious that people are reaching the top 500 without playing against others at their skill level. They’re saying it’s scummy and unfair, especially when top rankings are so few and coveted.
Comments
21 responses to “Crafty Overwatch Players Are Staying Up Late To Get Better Ranks”
Yep, I’ve seen this happen. Even happened to me. Although, I’ve accidentally done it myself when I stayed up too late playing the game (although I solo search, so it’s a gamble).
What’s worse is that a lot of these players also have multiple accounts, so the top 500 players are really the top 200.
Only positive thing is that they can barely get 5 points for winning and the losers barely lose 10. Although, that still doesn’t stock a team of 5 man hoping to get a bronze player on their team to lower their ranking enough to get more points.
Solo queue? You poor bugger.
But there is a huge difference between playing late because you want to, and doing it purposely because you want your rankings to go up.
Too many people use bullshit tactics
Several Australian GMs have been caught playing at 8am specifically so that they could play against kids on school break.
Put them in a server with cheaters -_-
But it’s not really cheating, you can’t force a restrictive time on players, everybody has the freedom to play games at any time of the day.
But it’s also not fair
I know. Neither are smurf accounts. But it’s incredibly hard to design a system that can recognise these abusive players without grabbing innocent players as well.
I can be outraged about it though, right?
I dunno man, some of those kids are pretty hardcore Overwatch players…
lol all kids are bad.
Surely there mmr system should be awarding significantly less rating for defeating a patchwork team of a lower skill. If the difference between the is too much there shouldn’t be any mmr awarded to the higher team.
They get like, 2-5 per win. Not much, but their goal is easy wins to grind out to their rank, not to competitively do their best.
While you may think the losing team wouldn’t really care, they can’t quit or surrender, lest they lose up to 80 points. So they’re forced to sit through an unwinnable game, having no fun and wasting so much time that could have been spent searching for a balanced game.
Don’t hate the player, hate the.. developer..
Why would you hate the devs? Im sure they are trying their best… unless you have a system that is far better?
That explains why i’ve met some terrible diamond players..
In other news though im so gutted i didnt make plat this season… didnt know s3 ended today…
S4 starts in a week in case you didnt know, so not that long before you can try getting to plat again…
Yeah i do.. but i was only 50SR off it.. such a shame
I hear you. For three seasons now I’ve been so close to Diamond but just haven’t been able to get over that hurdle.
First season I was 2 off. Season 2 I made it to 2864. Season 3 I got to 2861.
At least I finished @ 2700 for season 3 so that’s something I guess, especially seeing as I’d dropped down to almost below 2000.
If they keep the placement matches the same for Season 4 as they did in Season 3 then I should start off S4 around the 2700 mark.
Yeah im hoping the placements dont put me too far off my current rankin.. fingers crossed
No such luck.
For some inexplicable reason, despite going 5-4-1 in placements on Xbox, I was placed 2425.
I’ve been doing this lately in the early afternoons with an American friend who stays up till 3-4am their time (about 5pm Melbourne time) and we roll competitive on the US servers. Then the Koreans jump on and they start rolling teams on the US servers. That’s when we jump off cause the aimbot and wall hacks from Korea start ruining the game