It’s a quintessential frustration for players in any game that includes some form of a competitive ladder. Perhaps the most consistent annoyance for players is that they believe their rating doesn’t accurately reflect how skilled they are.
Without fail, many players tend to believe that their rank in games like Overwatch 2 is lower than what it should be. And yesterday, Blizzard senior software engineer Morgan Maddren confirmed that, perhaps for the first time ever, a lot of those players were correct.
In seasons one and two of Overwatch 2, Maddren said that there was a bug in the game that made players’ ratings slightly lower than they should have been.
“In season three we fixed a bug where we realized we were actually being too harsh,” he said. “Everybody’s ranks were lower than what they should have been, even if you play a lot of matches.”
The bug fix headed into season three has led to a large amount of perceived rating inflation by players, and according to Maddren, had Blizzard realized that the bug fix would generate such a noticeable shift in player rankings, the devs would have publicized it a little bit more.
While he admitted that there still is a bug in the game that is inflating some player rankings, it’s at the higher end of the spectrum. The example Maddren used was that some players in higher tiers can end up with higher ranks if they go on big win streaks.
This is set to change in season four, however. Maddren said that starting next month when season four begins, players’ ranks will once again just be in line with what their rating is, similar to the way it used to be in the original Overwatch.
“Hopefully things will feel a lot saner in season four,” he said.
