Ranked went live on PC via update earlier today, and I just want to gauge how people are feeling it.

I personally found that games started going way better for me after my 10 placement matches, which involved some absolute steamrolls against me with some lesser than stellar teammates. Placed at 54, already at 59 with quite a few victories, so I'm happy with that. Had a few great games with cool laidback Australian blokes over voice chat, and a few not so great games where I get yelled at for maining Zenyatta (as a support of course. I do play other characters).

I also really enjoy it's inclusion as being the 'serious' mode. Makes me feel way better about bumming around in quick play playing characters I usually don't ever play.

@adequatelyprepared: How's it work? You get a ladder ranking? Or do you get a level like in Hearthstone, which resets every month? Or does it just hide that stuff

I only played one placement game, and I enjoyed it. We did the capture the point/escort the payload on King's Row. Both teams got the payload all the way to the destination, so we went to sudden death, which seems to heavily favor whoever wins the coin toss to attack. The sudden death rules is the attacking team just has to capture the original point on King's Row within like 1 minute and 30 seconds. I feel like the defenders are at a huge disadvantage since the spawn points are the same. We took the point pretty quickly and won.

I'm interested to play more of it, especially so I can get my placement rank and play with people who are of a similar skill.

My first game I played Mercy because I play supports/filler and gotten pretty good with them. It was on King's Row and the first round we didn't cap the point. Round 2 begins and we're on defense. No one on my team picks a tank and we get steamrolled in less than a minute, losing the game.

So it's been the same solo queue experience.

Second game, though, was on Ilios and I played Lucio. We lost the first round but went on to win the next three rounds in rather close games so that was at least better.

@gkhan: One of the reasons it took a while to get Ranked play is because the original system was like Hearthstone, and people didn't take well to it in the closed beta, so they tore it out altogether.

You play 10 placement matches, and get a Competitive Score out of 100. Game then matches you base on that score, and you climb or fall down depending on wins/losses. No idea if the the score correlates to percentiles or what. Seasons are generally 3 months, but this one is 2.5.

You also get Competitive Points (very slowly), that you can spend on Golden Weapons. It will take a long time to get any Golden weapons, though I think that there will be probably be a lot of points given out at the end of the season based on peak Competitive Score.

Isn't that kinda like Hearthstone? Don't you start at rank 25 there, and then work your way up towards 1, going up and down based on wins and losses? Isn't this the same thing, but they reversed the scale and multiplied it by 4?

I guess you don't start at the bottom, but do those placement matches instead.

So ... is there a solo/team-rank like in Hots? Or just one Rank for everything?

It's been bad for me so far. I played 4 games so far. Won one, the first one was stopped because someone left in the first few minutes and the second two went down as losses because people left mid way through. I'm not too bothered by my initial ranking but this is just an infuriating waste of time.

Pretty bad for me; people still haven't been taking it remotely seriously in my placement matches. In my first match we started on offense in the Russian assault map and had three Hanzos who all refused to change. I don't think we even reach the first control point once, let alone captured it.

The sudden death mechanics seem bad. Battle.net disconnected me in the middle of one of my matches as well and the game does not allow you to reconnect so for the rest of the match my team had to play a man down.

After 6 placement matches, 5 of them we either stomped the other team or got stomped. One was actually really close but we lost when we couldn't push the cart a few meters thanks to an enemy Mercy reviving their whole team to stop the cart. I guess it goes to show the wide variety of player skill around these parts.

Last 2 matches of my 10 placements were against the same blatant cheater twice in a row he had no concerns of hiding it, he played nothing but Soldier 76 and was target snapping everyone. So not so well, not so well at all. The sudden death systems are also pure unfiltered sewage. I honestly cannot fathom how Blizzard thought it would be ok in the state they are in. We pushed a payload to the end with 8mins remaining. The enemy team pushed it with 34 seconds remaining yet they get sudden death. Worse yet, they get attack coin flip on Gibraltar one of the hardest payload maps to defend the first 2 points.

I'm not gonna bother with it until they change that awful sudden death mechanic. It's also a coin flip over whoever gets to be the attacker, who has the clear advantage.

I played solo and grouped and in both cases, matches were a stomp one way or the other.

Oh and yeah, everyone seems to hate the overtime mechanics.

Teammates in randoms are way more impatient, ready to blame you for their loss of rating, but they're still reluctant to coordinate.

It's simply not balanced yet, and the promise of more xp and a new currency is only going to make the "bad" players stand out.

Much like Rocket League I find the competitive mode in Overmatch makes for more evenly matched games as opposed to the constant ups and downs of pub matches. Regardless of who wins it never feels to me like there are players on either side who are playing way above or below their skill level. The coin flip is not great. I half wished they had split the playlists up so you could filter out certain maps or game types, but I also understand how this would affect queue times. Hopefully the coin flip is something they can address soon now ranked is live and Blizzard is no doubt combing through match data.

Has been pretty bad, people seem even more on edge and ready to throw blame around than usual. Think I might just stick with quick matches, maybe the angry people have left those now.

@doctordonkey: Seems to be the opposite from what I've seen. Since you need to take the first point, the attacking team has a much shorter run back and can win purely on attrition.

@alkusanagi: Brainfart, mean't the exact opposite of what I said. The attacking team definitely has the clear advantage, yes.

Can't play any other way. The people in competitive want to win and that makes the whole thing more tense and satisfying.

This game is fun and I'll probably do the placement matches because sometimes it's nice to be competitive, but if people yell at me in a match i just mute them; I'm playing to have a good time and honestly even though i would prefer to win, I don't care that much if i lose. I would rather have someone yell at in real life anyway, at least there's more of a challenge to deal with it, it's more interesting and a better exercise.

Pretty good. 3-1 right now. I got that fancy badge for top 500 in NA, but I don't know if that is still a bug or not. I'd like to think it was fixed when it was all implemented. It feels like a comp MM like in any other game. People are much more serious and will rage if ONE thing doesn't go their way. I came in knowing this so I just play my best and help the team to get that W.

Can say for the casual unranked / quick matches that most matches I've been in have been with people around the level 25 and under range. Seems like once people hit the 25 level minimum most dedicated players seem to directly jump to ranked, which is fine.

I had no intention of playing my placement matches, as I have sick kids at the moment. I was doing some quick play, trying to get 10x wins on each character to strengthen my knowledge, and came back from getting a drink to find an invite. I hit accept quickly, and lo and behold, it was for placement matches. We kicked butt (I was on fire most of the match), got to the 2nd round, and one kid started to projectile vomit. I could hear it across the house. So I idled and got disconnected. I completely screwed over a group without intending to. At least in quick play only you get punished and someone fills your spot.

So, yeah, sorry to that group.

But what I did see was impressive. Very well coordinated and highly competitive. Even quick play feels more competitive now.

There's also (reportedly) a bug with KotH maps not counting towards gaining rank. I may finish my placements eventually, but there do seem to be a few bugs and kinks to still work out.

I went 8-2 in my placements, which put me at 66 which is in the top 1%.

So pretty well, I guess.

I went 6-4 in my placement matches. Had a terrible little stretch last night so I think I'm 7-7.

I've found people take it way too personal if you have a bad game, though. Changed characters, tried different approaches, to no avail and I would just get blasted in the chat. At the point now where I might just mute all chat every game. It sucks because communication can be really important, but it does take the fun out of the game when people act like you're intentionally trying to drag their rank down.

I like the mode overall, as the point system provides a good tension. But I think people would be happier if climbing up the ranks wasn't so slow compared to falling down them, which might expedite the skill gap that will develop as bad players go down and good players go up. Like others said, sudden death rounds need to be completely overhauled. Often way too one-sided.

Basically, I played like crap and people really hated me for it. Still like the mode.

My first two matches that we won were tough but generally interesting battles. The second one was a little belabored going into a 4-4 tie breaker. Playing 50 minutes of one Overwatch match is a bit much. The next two my team got completely steamrolled by what I assume was a coordinated team of friends? Not sure why my team of random 20's and 30's was suddenly pit against a bunch of 80's and 90's.

The 4 games I played so far, which I think take way too long, didn't seem much different from typical matchmaking. I ran into a few more microphone-team-captains than usual - my favorite a guy that for the first 20 minutes kept screaming for someone to go Mei to counter Genji and then in the second half of the match kept screaming "Hanzo guys! HANZO! HANZO guys someone take out the Hanzo!"

I sort of like that a typical Overwatch game takes anywhere between 7-15 min which is the perfect amount of time to quickly play something. The competitive matches have the capacity to go on for a quite a while longer where I just don't feel like it anymore. That one game where we finally won 5-4 on a tie breaker was exhausting. I didn't want to play that map 5 times in a row, much less with that one guy on our team. I like the idea of getting something out of this and seeing numbers change beside your username is always fun but I dunno how "great" I think the entire concept is.

More coordination, slightly more toxicity than Quick Plays. (Except for the placement matches, where almost every game was toxic.)

That's what I was afraid of. Any time you get a "rank" or a competitive score in something that relies on your team, people tend to just blast everyone who isn't doing Esports level plays. I'm hoping it isn't as bad as Mobas though just because that completely turned me off from playing them, and I'm super interested in this competitive mode.

@panther2103: I literally had a guy (same guy screaming HANZO HANZO!) use moba terms when shouting at us. As in "guys we gotta take out their carry first" or some such nonsense. The concept of a "carry" in Overwatch is pretty ridiculous. Fortunately not a lot of people use mics. Typical ridiculous trash talk post game does ensue and I tend to report every single person that starts using racial slurs or gets carried away with telling others how much they suck. It's just a game.

That's a bit weird they would call anything a carry when there's no level or gold or item advantage in this. As long as the trash talk doesn't get nuts during the game I think I can put up with it. The thing that turned me off in Moba games tended to be consistent harassment if you weren't playing your lane perfectly, telling anyone who didn't fully know their champion to uninstall the game or die or get cancer. Muting kind of helps but it ends up ruining the point of a team game.

@panther2103: "Carries" are probably the ones who think they need a slave Mercy behind them 24/7.

The MOBA toxic talk is not that servere in Overwatch fortunately, but you still get salty people at times. Shame ranked matches last a little longer than quick play (unnecessary in my opnion and the coin flip sudden death doesn't help), so people can be a little bit extra salty when they don't win. And you can't instant leave like you can in quick play (which is what I do when people start to behave like a MOBA asshat), because the empty slot doesn't get filled up.

@gundogan: Yah yesterday I hopped on thinking OK I just drank a bunch of water before my run, so let me knock out one of these placements while the water absorbs into my body - 15 min is perfect then I can go have my run and not get a cramp. Over 50 minutes later we're on sudden death and quite frankly I don't even care if we win or lose anymore I just want to get on with it cause it was my 2nd of 10 placements.

@humanity: Sounds like you should just stick to quickplay then.

I should probably stick to Quickplay when I want a quick match. Ranked can have it's time and place when I want to sit down and dedicate more of my night to the game. That said I do think they should do something to shorten the matches.

@humanity: I think the length is by intention. Determining the better team needs to be done over a decent period of time for either team to learn and adapt from each other. Also in all honestly the longer a match with their current systems the closer to equal skill both teams will generally be. Probably about 80% of my matches have been down to the wire in sudden death (which sadly is heavily flawed) and the long journey there makes it all the more satisfying or crushing when it ends.

I'm not level 25 yet :(

I guess I haven't been playing enough.

@ivdamke: Exactly, because the sudden death is flawed the length of the overall matches can be a real bummer and could benefit from being shorter.

@adequatelyprepared: Wait... What's wrong with maining Zenyatta?

I made it through the placement matches and had a pretty good time. There was definitely more coordination than I had seen in quick play and it really tested how good I thought I was at the game. After I got into ranked proper I slowly lost my enthusiasm. It basically boiled down to me getting completely wiped and feeling like I was a liability to the team. I decided to just stick to Quick play from now on, as it's just too stressful otherwise. I'm glad it's there for the people who want it though.

KOTH is worthless in competitive right now. Winning will get you around 5-10% towards your next rank but losing will lose you around 60-70%.

EDIT: accidental double post from mobile

i've lost rank having more wins than losses, because losses really tank your rating than what you gain from winning :(

@marz: That means you aren't contributing at an average or higher than average amount comparatively to your team and player average on that map when you're winning. Unless of course you're losing on Payload/Assault then winning on KotH in which case KotH offers like 1/10th of MMR gain for winning comparitively to Payload and Assault.

so i'm getting punished for switching to support and tank heroes between rounds to fit the teams needs so my stats don't stack the highest in the game?

@marz: Or it's probably that half the maps give pretty much nothing for winning right now.

@marz: That seems to be the case yea, it's pretty terrible. Obviously this isn't fact though, I'm going off by my experiences and the 15 odd other people I know that play the game.

Here's a blue post commenting on the Koth situation but it does look like that's something they're going to need to look into. Guess I'll go back to quickplay until they fix that, the idea of winning 6-8 games and to lose all that progress with one loss sounds like it's going to break me. Or the unlucky chance that you win a Koth, lose a payload, still maintain a 50% W/L ratio, but you're losing more than another guy who's also at 50% but happens to win in the payload and lose at the Koth seems unfair.

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20745665208#post-3

It's gotten better once I got through the placement matches. Last night solo queued into a random game and 3 or 4 of us were using voice chat, which surprised everyone. We decided to group up after winning and played a few more games together. Pretty fun. Well, except for the guy who took charge and yelled at someone for refusing to switch from Symmetra when we were on offense. He was right but he was kind of a dick about it. We were all around rank 43-44 and had some great close games. Matchmaking doing its job finally.

Oh I should add that we played a few games as a 3-group and one as a group of 6, and the last team we played (also a 6-group) was much more organized and we got pretty stomped. But then again I guess you could just as easily run into 6 friends who are all different skill levels, though maybe not in competitive mode. Was surprised we only had to wait about 3 minutes for a match, and this was at like 5am EDT on a weeknight!

Other than all that rank business it's still Overwatch. Sometimes I get teams that are a little more focused on winning than in quick play but there's still plenty of people who just pick Reaper and spend the entire match running off by themselves and not communicating.

It's not as bad as MOBAs. Lately I've seen more coordination than toxicity. The thing is, for me the placement matches were unbelievably salty, but the moment I finished them the salt levels plummeted and Competitive actually became enjoyable.