Overwatch 2 accused of “punishing” winners by putting Grand Masters in Silver games

Overwatch 2 players believe they’ve found a big reason why they continue to have unbalanced competitive matches and it comes down to win streaks.

Since its launch, Overwatch 2’s new ranked mode has been blasted by players in all sorts of ELOs for putting them in completely uneven games. Even streamers like Dr Disrespect have called out the competitive mode for how it ranks users.

We’ve seen countless incidents where Bronze players show up in Top 500 lobbies, but things have begun to reach a boiling point in Season 2.

With ranked gurus discussing the system’s faults, it seems like they’ve discovered a possible culprit for why their games have been wildly difficult after they win matches.

Overwatch 2’s ranked system accused of making matches harder

In a series of posts across Reddit and Twitter, Overwatch 2 players revealed their struggles with the competitive ladder.

For example, one player revealed that a gamer with a “Top 500 Challenger” title and a Silver-ranked teammate showed up in a Platinium-level lobby.

Another explained how after going on a decent win streak with good teammates, things got a lot more difficult when they lost a single game.

Someone with the "Top 500 Challenger" title, and a Silver, in the same lobby (Plat level). Needless to say it was not a fun game… from Competitiveoverwatch

“Then after losing just one game (it was close), I suddenly had to stop and stand still in front of Ana to get heals. She couldn’t hit me while I was moving,” the player said. “The skill differentials between everyone in one game and the next is completely wild. I’ve never seen such big differences in any multiplayer PVP game I’ve ever played.”

Twitch streamer ‘Phyerx’ recalled a similar experience, remarking how, “Everytime I’m on a huge win streak on Overwatch Blizzard will put plat-gold players on my team as if they are purposely making me stay my same rank.”

“This game 100% punishes you for winning. I needed 1 win after 6 games and now -5 games due to matchmaking suddenly,” she added, demanding that Blizzard fix their game.

I don't even think the balance of this game is even THAT bad compared to matchmaking and I don't see enough people talk about it. It's NOT fair. For anyone. I should not be punished for playing well or winning. No one should EVER.

— Nad (@Phyerx) December 19, 2022

In the comments, others agreed. “This has actually been my exact experience. Literally 6 win streak in Masters 3 as a GM PLAYER then a 17-game loss streak with plats on my team?”

While the Overwatch 2 devs haven’t commented on if this is how the matchmaker works, the team has said they do plan on making improvements to the ranked experience in future updates.

There’s no indication of when those changes to competitive play will go live, but with players growing increasingly frustrated, we can only hope that some big updates are implemented sooner than later.