@chaser324: I'm aware that the system could be exploited if they did change it, I still think it's better to try going that route.

First of all, even if you happen to switch up who is leaving etc. it should still become obvious rather soon to Blizzard who is doing this stuff leading to fast bans.

Second you shouldn't have any way to get into a match with a friend on opposing teams anyway (at least not on a regular enough basis were it matters at all).

And last, if you have people harassing other people so they leave, the solution is simple: Report the fuckers and they should get what's coming to them soon enough too.

I've been playing solo and it's been pretty awful so far. I keep getting matched with clearly not very good players and it doesn't help that I'm doing my placements so late.

First game I was matched with two level 25 guys against a team with 3 prestiged players, and had to carry hard on Reinhardt although we still lost. Another game had a player on my team switching every death and going symmetra on attack, so there is nothing I can do in a situation like that and we got completely stomped. I've had gold medals every single game so far so hopefully I will get a decent MMR, but judging by the players I'm up against I'm almost certainly going to be ranked around 50 which I don't want to be, because the game is less fun with and against bad players, and climbing the ladder is going to be almost impossible in solo without a group. Currently 3-5 with two matches to go so I'll see.

Played 4 or 5 hours of competitive and these are my main issues:

1. Battle.net connectivity and player penalties. I have lost a connection to battle.net during 3 competitive games and received a penalty as a result. At first I thought it was an issue on my end but managed to verify that it wasn't. Finally reconnecting only to find out I have lost rank because of an issue on Blizzard's end isn't great. I understand the need to penalize quitters, but if they could distinguish between the two it would be preferable.

2. End Game. A couple issues here mostly concerned with attack/defend maps. First, I've played in rounds that are in overtime where once the point is no longer contested it is captured instantly. Likely a bug but shitty to see in a competitive mode. Second, the sudden death coin flip is a poor way to determine a winner for a hotly contested match. I've had several matches where, for example, the attack team won each round and then took the sudden death. Seems unbalanced, but Blizzard says they're going to address it.

3. Rank progression. Pretty simple. Playing for 30 to 40 minutes only to move maybe half a rank when you win is incredibly unrewarding. Add to that the fact that a loss almost always drops you a full rank and it makes quick play seem like a more worthwhile use of your game time.

4. Toxicity of the community. I guess competitive mode is serious business because when things start to go poorly the team chat gets toxic quickly and the hate and blame really starts to spread. I've never understood the need to tell someone to kill themselves over a fucking game.

I just lost a game were 4 people on my team left. I had all gold medals on my team (not saying that much, but still) and the Play of the Game and the rank loss was a whole level. That's great. I hate this mode. Blizzard can go fuck themselves.

By the way: Going of what's going on in the Blizzard forums right now, everyone hates ranked.

edit: Jeff Kaplan's saying they will implement certain "changes" to the leaver penalties soon. Yeah, they'd better.

In my opinion the games are better. Seems like most of the time the games come down to the very last second. I will say having someone quit, whether it be our team or the other, is a huge bummer. My biggest complaint so far has to be the so called "experts" who like to inform you that you are not doing so hot or that you should be playing a certain class. I'm OK with being told hey maybe you should pick something else but its the way its communicated. SNIPER ON ATTACK!? Yeah I'm gonna try it and if it doesn't work out i will switch...no biggie. So yeah overall i really like it. Would be a lot better with a team of people you know and are familiar with.

I just really can not fathom how you can loose so much rank when 3 players from your team quit a short way into the 1st game.

50 eliminations, gold. 30 objective kills, gold. 4:50 objective time, gold. 5 player multikill from a D.Va ult, potg. 2 players on my team leave at the last minute for some reason. Team loses, drop a rank. FUCK. THIS.

These people drive me nuts. "Junkrat's not so good on offense dude." was one I got today, while getting like 3 kills to clear out a point... It is very hard not to get sucked into a debate with these trolls, and they immediately blame any loss on the one character they don't think was a good pick. I try to pick my best chars in comp games, but I'm happy to switch if anyone else wants them or has a reasonable plan. I don't quite know the right player-select etiquette yet: do you pick right away to let everyone know you're happy to play support (or whatever), or will instant-picking your best/favorite come across as greedy?

I'm a pretty good Symmetra player and there are times when I want to play her on attack or control-point but I am afraid to because I know someone will say something. How are you even supposed to debate the merits of the millions of possible combinations of heroes? I've even seen these people give up or stop trying because they believe the game is already lost due to one player having someone they don't agree with.

They postponed the release of competitive to improve it following the near universal negative feedback they got on the previous iteration during the beta and a month later release something that is actively on fire.

Junkrat has the perfect quote for blizzard's ineptitude with competitive modes. "If at first you don't succeed, blow it up again!"

Anyway, i'm done with the game for now, did my placements, played a bit more, awful experience across the board. Not interested in quick play anymore either where no one puts in any effort to try and play at least somewhat seriously so...

Also the community in general is pretty awful. Reading the game's subreddit i see tons of comments from disgruntled League players switching over to Overwatch for whatever Riot did last to piss them off. Might explain why the community is so shit.

I love me some Overwatch, I really do. It's one of my favorite games of the year without question. Yet competitive mode has some serious issues. Can those issues be addressed and fixed? Almost certainly, this is Blizzard and their game support is the best in the industry. But by the time those issues are addressed I can't help but feel like the game's buzz may be over and a lot of its good will dried up. Which hey, Overwatch has done great and has a big community. And we know there are maps and new heroes on the way. But Blizzard made a huge mistake releasing competitive mode in its current format.

One of the reasons competitive mode was delayed is because beta players wanted competitive ranking to be based on skill, not time played. I agree with that request in theory because, well, it's called competitive mode. But the ranking system implemented, based mostly upon winning or losing a match isn't a reflection so must on personal skill as it is on team skill. Your ranking goes up if your team wins, and down if your team loses, regardless of how well you played. Which makes sense since Overwatch is a team based shooter. Theoretically, if everyone performed their roles and worked together, you'd always win! But that could be said for every competitive multiplayer game, and Overwatch is not quite like any other online shooter.

I know of so many people that don't care for online multiplayer shooters who have really enjoyed the game and put a lot of time into it. A more personal skill based competitive mode would have encouraged the people who don't play these sort of games as much a new path of progression against like minded players. On the other side highly skilled players would face other highly skilled players, since the matching making would be skilled based. That's what I envisioned competitive mode being. But in actuality it's an Esports mode. Put a party together of people with mics and play the classes deemed correct in order to win and rank up. I'm not huge on the scene, but if I'm not mistaken I think that's Esports.

I'm sure things will be addressed and fine-tuned, but by the time that happens I can't help but think a lot of people are going to get turned off. People that don't really care about rankings and just want to have a good time are already looking for new content. For the people that really want a competitive multiplayer game the Dota Invitational is in August, followed by a Destiny expansion in September and Titanfall and Battlefield soon there after.

Battle.net connectivity has been a big issue for me as well. It was very frustrating to be disconnected from Bnet through no fault of my own, hit "Rejoin Match", get placed in the same match, win, and...lose rank. Especially given I was usually out only a few seconds and had actively played the duration of the game.

@njdohert: Overwatch is a team-based game, through and through. I'm not sure I understand your criticism that it should be purely based on individual skill. You're right that it has appealed to a wider base than most team based games do, but that doesn't change the nature of what it is. I imagine a lot of folks who are enjoying the game and don't necessarily care for the inevitable frustration of trying to rank up in a team game will stick to quick play, which is totally fine.

If anything, I wish the game did MORE to incentivize teamplay and less for individual performances. I understand the frustration of doing well and still losing, but I think there are a lot of perception issues around the "I got most kills and we still lost, my team just sucked".mentality. Certainly getting a lot of kils helps, but there is a lot that the game won't necessarily recognize that can significantly contribute to wins (zoning is probably the biggest one). Right now there's not as much motivation to do that, because it won't contribute to your bottom line and thus won't help your MMR gain/loss.

I come from competitive TF2, Dota 2, and CS:GO, so I absolutely understand the frustration of relying on a team to see personal progress. But I think it's inherent to this format, and ultimately a really good player (in terms of both mechanics and teamplay) will win more games than a lesser player over time...that should be the only metric needed in my opinion.

Part of the issue is during placement matches the game claims you're being matched on personal skill. What metrics that turned out to be I'm not sure (I always play support, have an 80% win rate with Symmetra and closing in on 70% win rate with Mercy) as I was matched repeatedly with teams filled with offensive and bad widowmakers, bastions, and hanzos or Team Torb for defense. But in any event, it already creates this perception that your personal performance is how you'll be ranked - except that's not the actual case...not exactly. Losses presently do not seem to care much about personal performance, whereas win percentage gain is heavily influenced by personal performance, but not against everyone in your match. No, it's against everyone in your skill rank and skill sub-tier. You could perform best out of your entire team but poorly compared to everyone else in your rank/tier, and only get 1/15th of a rank up. You could lose, however, perform stellar on all levels, and lose an entire level.

I wouldn't mind something more simple, like Halo 5's "only wins and losses matter" as this is very much a team game over individual performance. There was a video circulating around on reddit of a widowmaker with 92% kill participation who was wiping the floor with the enemy team and still lost. Why? Nobody on the team bothered to get on the point. Many of the most aggravating losses people talk about are ones where the enemy team steamrolls them because they know zoning, they know tactics, and they have knowledge of the maps and class meta that makes it impossible for the other team to progress unless they, also, have all those same skills/knowledge.

Perhaps an easy compromise would be to do what they have done with Heroes of the Storm: have a solo and team league (Hero League and Team League). If they did that, I'd never step foot into solo league again.

The leaver issues just get worse and worse, currently I'd say we are at about an 85% leave rate per match (on PS4), which is just ridiculous.

I think I'll just stop playing this until they finally do something about this shit.

After placing at 48 in competative mode, I've managed to work my way up to 57. Feels good

At first I love it but its become unbearable. No one communicates, people refuse to swap off terrible character choices (no, we don't need 3 Genji), and I've been placed with nearly 10 terrible teams in a row.

I have noticed tons of players who seemingly shouldn't be in competitive. If you don't want to at least listen to team communication why even play the mode? There's general matchmaking and vs AI for general play.

Upto rank 62 currently. Apparently this puts me in the top 8%. Definatly noticing the better quality of players. Still get the occasional hero pick that has me scratching my head, but I just have to trust they have some plan for it.

So I did my 10 qualifying matches and then played like 3 more matches after getting ranked. It's not all that fun tbh. Some of the matches are way too long and teammates are still dumb as fuck

After almost two weeks I can honestly say there are certain things I've come to expect from EVERY competitive match I play.

The first is that, regardless of winning or losing, every single game I've played has been a complete steamroll one way or another. It's either can never push the cart/cap a single point or completely push the cart the whole way without any obstruction in one quick run. It's VERY weird.

The second is that, as expected, it's brought out the worst in the players. But what I didnt expect is that I'd be reporting at least one player per match for harassment towards others. I've seen some pretty foul things being said that kinda reminded me why I havent bothered with competitive MP much in the last decade.

Oh also... one loss puts me down a rank, but two wins are generally required to put me up a rank? Erm...ok.

So yeah, it's very weird. I'll probably still play it occasionally until the season ends but I am very glad that quickplay still remains populated.

I ended up placing and 48 and have since quickly climbed to 55. I didn't enjoy my placements at all but overall I've had a good time playing real matches. I've had more consistently good matches in competitive than with quick play which is what I wanted out of this system.

The only problem is that quite a few people get really mad at video games which is a shame.

@mikelemmer: I feel there isn't as much toxicity as in Mobas. I'd argue that is cause the isometric view of a strategy game give you a better view of your team mates and lets you take better note of their plays vs missplays.

The comp system is completely broken and one of the worst experiences you can imagine. People leaving, people not getting rewarded if people leave and if someone leaves there is little reason to stay (You'll win the occasional 5v6, but it will be rare), Situation were the leaving turn into a 3 v 6 which is just miserable for the 3 players and kind of stupid for the 6.
Unbalanced rewards, losing a game can cost you a whole rank, while a win might give you as little as 1/15th level.

I am sure Blizzard will patch this up, but at the moment solo queue is kind of a mess. Getting a full 5-6 stack going is the way to go. (It kind of always is, but even more so in this game. In Mobas because of the isometric view people with a bit of experience will naturaly just better react and support eachother. It is tricky in a first person shooter without good communication.)

After Blizzard’s supposed fix of the leaver penalties yesterday I’m now losing a whole rank every time I lose (no matter of someone leaves) and only gain an inch to a third of rank of with a win.

Looks like they did a great job once again.

I have to echo everyone's negative sentiments here; competitive has completely sapped my enjoyment of the game. My time in ranked has been filled with leavers, overly long games lost to coin flips, blow outs, and a general feeling of sadism from the ranking system. The people themselves have been mostly fine: I calibrated in the low sixties before dropping to the mid fifties and most people are not toxic assholes and try to work together (though this is less the case as I slowly but surely derank due to blizzard's terrible progression system).

The fact that a 50% winrate is not enough to keep your damn rank is absurd. You need to win 2-3 (and sometimes even 4!) matches for every loss. Supports and tanks get screwed because of the way the game's "personal skill" metrics work, gaining less hidden mmr and ranked xp for a win and losing more for a loss when compared to DPS characters. According to breakdowns from reddit and other online forums, the game is actively enforcing a steep bell curve that keeps like 80% of the player base between ranks 40 and 60. What? Who thought this was a good idea? Add to this maddness the underdog mechanic's absurd impact on ranking/deranking, since it kicks in at 1 average skill rank below: considering the bell curve and how volatile the rating system is, an honest underdog mechanic would kick in at about five levels below, if at all. Because, trust me, it is no problem to lose five ranked levels in an afternoon ---- levels that are next to impossible to get back. I've stopped playing because there are few things less fun than playing a ranked mode that feels like an unfair and time-consuming race to the bottom.

The mode is garbage and is actively on fire. I realize that people didn't like the one from the beta and felt it was too "casual". Well, congratulations for getting exactly what you wanted, because now you need a 75% winrate or better to consistently advance/not feel like every game is a kick in the pants. Hardcore enough for you? Blizzard should not have released it in its current state. Given how slow Blizz is in implementing changes (almost a month for two much-needed character nerfs that amounted to only a few damage points?) I have a feeling we'll be dealing with this dumpster fire for some time, if it gets fixed properly at all.

Same pool of players as quickplay, and the same terrible matchmaking algorithms that put solo queue players with a two-man and a three-man against a six-man.

So, awful. That's coming from a support main who solo queues, though.

Here is my story. I queue with 1 friend. We came out of placement in the mid 40s. Over the last two nights:

Record: 6-6

Medals: Unscientific survey suggests he averaged 1.5 golds and I averaged 1.

Rank: I DROPPED 6 ranks. He dropped 5.

Process that. We went 50/50 and lost 10-15 percent of our ranking. After coming out of placement "below average". Yep. Makes sense.

I think the League of Legends cancer mentality is seeping back into overwatch. The last few overwatch ranked games I played (ranked between 50 and 54) have had at least one person going completely negative on voice chat. Saying things like "gg, this junkrat is trash" to "always having a trash team", the former quote came from a game in which we actually won too. It didn't seem so bad in the initial phase of ranked before we actually were placed, but that may just be luck of the draw. Overall, I feel like it's going to be a bumpy road of terrible attitudes and negative people. Gonna keep that mute button warm.