There are multiple different ways that video games with competitive ladders, like Overwatch 2, can approach new seasons. Some games will do a reset, or even decay, of ranks that requires players to do placement games to get a new rank, and others have players keep close to the same rank to start a new season.
One of the popular approaches to new seasons in games is to have players start out with a slightly decayed rank. This makes it so that as players play games at the beginning of the season they typically rank up early in the season, this is meant to give players an added sense of progression in a season. In Overwatch 2, however, the idea of rank decay has been a bit of a sore subject for players.
The method is one that is used by games like MTG Arena, and at the start of Overwatch 2, Blizzard used the method as well when the game moved to a seasonal battle pass system. Feedback from players indicated that ranking up early in a season after getting some rank decay didn’t necessarily feel great for players, though.
The gains from ranking early on didn’t outweigh the poor feelings that players felt when they started the season and had a lower rank than they felt that they deserved.
Does Overwatch 2 have rank decay?
As of season four in Overwatch 2, Blizzard has gotten rid of season-over-season rank decay in response to player feedback. In the patch notes for season four, the developers gave an explanation for why they were taking it out.
“The previous seasonal rank decay was causing considerable confusion for players, who would see players in their Competitive games who did not appear to be of a similar rank,” they said. “Often these players were actually of similar skill, but they had not played enough games during the season to compensate for the initial decay.”
Related: Overwatch 2 season 4 rank changes explained
By getting rid of rank decay, the developers changed the system to have rankings consistently line up more closely to what a player’s MMR is.
“Depending on how many games they played during the previous season, most players will see their skill tier and division increase,” they said. “A player’s skill tier and division at the beginning of Season 4 will now closely match the matchmaker’s estimate of your current skill.”
OW2 season four rank decay bug
With the start of season four, the rollout of the new system had some bumps along the road. Many players that logged in immediately after the start of the season experienced a bug that decayed their rating when they should not have experienced any decay.
In the day following the incident, Blizzard and Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller worked to fix the issue, which included some players getting the wrong season three rewards and titles due to the decay bug.
In a post to Twitter, Keller said that players who experienced that bug should have their appropriate rewards coming to them in a patch that will come out later this month. Players affected are set to receive some bonus competitive points to compensate them for their wait.
