Hey Duders, Ranked has been out most of the week now, and I've noticed a trend in placement ranks for nearly everyone that I've got on my friends list (around 60 people). Players who I would perceive at very different skill levels are all placing between 50-60 for their ranked play. I wanted to put this out to a wider audience to see if this holds up for more than my small sample size.. So... What rank are you?!

Edit: i placed at 59

Still waiting for it to release on Ps4...

Won 5 games, lost 5 games, and got placed at 51

Same ... one game was lost because of a leaver.

I ended up at 53. But I'm seeing a much wider representation accross my friends list, starting around 36, and ending up around my region (52s/53s)

I won 4 lost 6 and got placed at 44. Friend won 5 lost 5 and got 44 as well. Not sure how it's calculated.

Your rank is based on the MMR of the people you play against. People that solo-queued through their placement matches, playing against mostly below average or average players seemed to get an initial rank from low 40s to high 50s. The above average players who played in premade groups through their placements ended up playing against each other and that was reflected in their initial ranks, low 60s to low 70s.

The advantage of groups vs solo play seems to have switched in actual ranked matches though, as being a high ranked group makes it incredibly hard for you to level up your rank because of the disparity between your teams and your opponent team's MMR. High ranked players are leveling better by doing two or three stacks and carrying their team. The MMR math works out to give them a lot more ranked experience that way.

Me and all my friends are 50-56. I placed 54 with a 7-3 record. I'll be a little disappointed if it turns out that everyone ends up in the 50s for some reason because I thought it was pretty good compared to the pro players in the 70s.

So it seems like many of you are experiencing the mid 50s that I saw in my own personal sample.. I can't imagine that everyone that we all know are all placing in the 50s.. That seems crazy

Anecdotally, it sounds like ranks are distributed in a kind of bell curve, centered at 50, and ranging from about 20 to 80. Pro players seem to be in the 70's, the absolute worst players are in the 20's and damn near everyone else is in the 40-60 range.

41, half of my matches were losses because of people leaving. Only one of those was a definite loss when they left.

Seems odd that whenever I win a game the level increases by about 1/20 but every time I lose it goes down by a half. No idea how it's calculated.

I think I'm struggling so much because I only really like Lucio and I'm getting a bit bored of him.

@picky_bugger: Believe it or not Soldier 76 can be a good Lucio alternative. He has relatively fast movement speed like Lucio and he also has area-effect healing.

Went 8-2 and got 54. No idea how this works as my friends are going 5-5 4-6 and getting 50ish. The other 8-2+ scores are getting like 60+. Salty

@humanity: Aye, he's been the attacking player who I like the most. People tend to pick him quickly so I go for Lucio to help the team. I do like Winston and Zarya but they are quite situational.

Won 6, lost 4 and got 53. I feel good about that rating.

@picky_bugger: I have the same thing with Symmetra. She is my favorite hero but I can only use her on defense and it's only worth it on a few maps.

8-2, 66

Your placement matches also take into account your personal skill level - if you're preforming well above average, despite your win/loss, you will rank much higher than others (minus the current KotH shenanigans).

For reference, most of the top pro players were initially placed at 65 to 70.

@slyspider:Not so much about how many wins but whom those wins and losses are against. 8 wins against teams less skilled than you vs 8 wins against tough opponents is going to account for the 10 rank difference. This is obfuscated during placement because no ranks are displayed but the system has already assigned everyone a preliminary rating and is weighing the odds accordingly.

Won 5, lost 5. Got ranked a 45, which frankly, seems bullshit to me. I guess it does just weigh wins/losses way more heavily than a single player's performances.

Can't recall if I went 3-7 or 4-6, but I ended up at 45. I feel like I should be a bit higher, but I played half of those solo, and there's a huge amount of luck involved with getting matched up with other decent solo players. I think I also out of necessity played a healer in a lot of those, and it seems like there's a bit of an unfortunate scoring bias that is not in favor of support players.

4 losses, 6 wins. Placed at 55.

I only had one person leave the entire placement process and had some of my most exciting and intense games ever. Pretty happy with competitive mode so far.

I also really would like to know how the actually "calculate" ranks, since I don't really see a big difference in the amount of "space" you win/lose on the rank-level-bar.

If you lose you drop about a third or so, if you win you go up by a bit over a third, no matter if you did great or not.

So you are telling me that even in a match were I first played Zarya, then Mercy, winding up with gold medals in kills, healing, objective kills, objective time and damage done (my team was terrible) I still drop the same amount just because we lost? That seems idiotic.

Really not happy with this mode right now.

edit: Okay, the bar changes in size. It still seems to be just about the same all the time, except if some players drop out.

I ended up at rank 64 from my placement matches after going 9-1 on Xbox One. Seeing people go 10-0 in placements and get the same rank or lower than me is confusing. Also the people getting 8-2 and ending up in the lower 50's.

Usually I'm not a fan of ranked modes but I've not had a single leaver yet which makes it a way more fun time than quick play. Though the sudden death stuff is kinda iffy, it seems way too heavily sided towards whoever gets randomly assigned playing defense to win. Winning because you "won" the coin flip in sudden death is a pretty shitty feeling

Just finished my ten placement matches. 7 losses and 3 wins. 48 rank. Kind of infuriating knowing that on quick play my win rate is above 50% and I know I was usually the best player on my team.

Competitive is not in a good state, support class level gains are not in sync with everyone else and sudden death coin flip is a barmy way to decide who wins.

It feels a lot like one step forward and three steps back when you have a win and a loss the next, very frustrating right now.

Sudden Death needs some SERIOUS overhauls, but I have to say, after finally placing, I have to say that I've had some of the most fun matches in my 35 hours of Overwatch from Ranked mode.

And so, after going 7-3 in the placement matches, I ranked at 58.

7 wins 3 losses, ended up rank 50.

E: Seems kinda low.

All solo, 3 wins 7 losses, ranked 48. It was pretty much expected considering the teams I was matched with were amongst the worst I've played with in the entire game. Had a couple of good matches after though and ranked up to 51 almost immediately, hopefully that continues and the quality of games improves.

I ran through all 10 of my PS4 placement matches yesterday with a few friends I regularly play with. Went 5-5, ranked at 49 which seemed accurate. I fancy myself an above-average player, but admittedly I played pretty poorly in some of those matches. One of my friends also ranked at 49, calling into question how much our individual effort impacted our rating. The other didn't play for a few matches at the beginning and left after our first non-ranking Competitive mode match (not that there's any difference).

Speaking of said match, it really soured me on Competitive. We just finished our placement and then got matched against a team with a 48, a 49, two 53s and a couple not-yet-ranked. However both of the 53s were around level 240 or so, and two others on that team were over 100 as well. I'm closing in on 50 and my friends are around 65. And the other team was absolutely savage. Like, it was the most stomped I've ever been in Overwatch. To say nothing of the humiliation of getting the shit kicked out of us for three straight rounds on Ilios, my friend and I then proceeded to lose a full rank, presumably because one person on our team was ranked 59.

I'm still willing to and want to keep trying competitive, but man that stunk. The third round, as opposed to the 2-out-of-3 in quick play, was particularly demoralizing, knowing at that point there was little we could do. Oh well, win some, lose some others really, really badly, as the saying goes.

Got 57 myself, but a friend of mine got 61 though.

Started out on rank 51, but from there it just went downhill, and now I'm on rank 47.

I came into rank at rank 55 or 56. Now, thanks to terrible teams, I've gone from 58 to 50.

I got put at 51 and am now at 46. I've played probably 6 or 7 matches at this point and I really see the value of being in a group chat. I'll probably never do it, but I see the draw. The first match I got stuck in during placement we actually lost a player (after the initial bail period) and we stuck it out. Somehow we ended up winning 5v6. That was definitely one of the more memorable matches I've had with the game. Since then it's been a veritable high and low kind of trek through the competitive space. Some teams just don't work out. You still get the lone wolf types that just don't understand that for me to heal you as a lucio or zenyatta you have to be in the sight line of me!

There's also been the dicks that complain if you don't do what they say or make one mistake. My favorite interaction was a match with a dude that tore into me for getting taken out as a lucio at the begging of a match (I was trying to knock the opposite team off a ledge when they came around the corner, but struck too soon), but by the end gave me props for doing my job well as a healer/defender. Tangent aside though, I do enjoy the more focused atmosphere in competitive. There really feels like there's something at stake, so even when things don't come together people seem to try a little more. I suppose that's entirely subjective though. I don't know if I'll continue throughout the rest of the season at a regular pace, but I've had an okay time so far with it.

@sammo21: It's more than possible to climb in solo que if you are consistently improving. Falling eight ranks in a game where the vast majority of players are within 48-58 levels of each other indicates more problems than "bad teammates". Honestly just seems like you got a little over placed rank wise. Granted this concentration of different skill levels is part of the reason it is so hard to climb, it also works in the reverse and allows you to be on teams above your skill level at times.

My suggestion would be to ask some good/friendly players to group up with you after a good game. If they are playing solo que, chances are they would love to group and have a little communication.

I don't know, I've lost at least 4 levels from people quitting alone. And had whole afternoons where less than half the matches I get in are finished by whole teams. I've also had streaks of winning 8-10 or losing 8-10 while climbing in a window of 7 or so levels (losing mostly while playing support and doing at least a decent job healing 30-40%). My biggest frustration is people quitting while we're winning when I'm trying to scratch my way back up the ladder. And the lower you drop the harder it is to win when you get in the range where people aren't doing any sort of team work. Point being I'm not convinced you can't get boned by team make up when my support play is fairly stable yet those streaks of flying up and down the rankings has happened more than once. Though it can bounce the other way where your luck has you on teams just steam rolling everyone. I might add I'm not incredible at this game by any means, and I mostly play support as I don't have a great grasp on all of the characters, but can hold my own often enough when I need that it's fun. Just feels kind of bad when I've had some of my best performances only to drop in rank anyway. Playing solo is a "tough row to hoe" sometimes, as Brad would say.

@themanwithnoplan: Honestly, I would never choose Zenyatta in competitive until they buff him up and fix how quickly his heals drop after LOS drop. Lucio/Mercy is the way to go if you're going single/double healers. Zenyatta has become the most under picked support character in the game in terms of competitive play so far.

@paliv You shouldn't be losing level at all from people dropping. While you do get a 'loss' counted on your record you shouldn't get any ding in your actual levels from it.

I could see that changing once they put out the new character patch. Zenyatta will be getting a shield boost that puts him to 200 hp and a movement increase during his ult. I think there's a few more points of nuance to it, but that's all I remember at the moment. Up till now, I understand the sentiment though.

Edit: Here's a quote from Gamespot on the change.

Zenyatta is the target of some of the most substantial character changes, too. His base shields have been increased by 50, giving him 50 health and 150 shield. Orb of Discord and Orb of Harmony both travel significantly faster now (120, up from 30), and his Ultimate allows him to move twice as quickly--you practically zoom around the map--and provides 300 health per second (up from 200).

"To increase his effectiveness, we've made several changes, the biggest of which is an increased shield pool," the patch notes state. "This will allow him to go head-to-head with more enemies. The Orb of Harmony and Discord changes are also a quality of life change, helping Zenyatta move his orbs around and apply their effects more quickly.

"And lastly, we've increased Transcendence's healing throughput. This Ultimate was designed to be the most effective against sustained, high-damage fire and least effective against short, high-damage bursts (like D.Va's or Junkrat's Ultimates). But, due to the amount of healing it provided, there were times when it was possible for even sustained fire to overcome Transcendence's output. We've made the heal powerful and also allowed Zenyatta to move around more quickly while it's active."

@sammo21: Does that mean by staying in the match when people are leaving I have been hurting my ranking? Because when I stay and finish the match it definitely has been dropping. I never really understood how the quits were working.

@paliv: Yeah, the system is kinda dumb right now. If someone quits on your team, don't waste your time, just leave too. Sure, you get a loss, but you're likely going to lose anyway and lower your rank.

It sucks for the other team too, because they barely get any gain to their ranking if someone on the other team quits, even at the complete end of the match.

@strife777: oh wow, wish I would've known that. Thanks for clarifying that. I feel kinda dumb now. It would be nice if there was a pop up that explained that.

@paliv: yeah there is a message that tells you that you can safely leave now. Once that's gone you are going to suffer a loss and rank loss.

@sammo21: I guess I didn't really get what was meant by safely. Oh well, I'm not too concerned about my rank considering I'm not that great to begin with and now it makes a little sense. Thanks again for the info.