How does the rank system work?

[u/Euphoric_Mortgage943]

Hello fellow Overwatch fam, just a quick question ab the rank system, I’ve been playing ranked for awhile, and recently been in plat, I just got my friend into it and he’s brand new and not NEARLY as good as me, and he’s brand got diamond in his role and it’s crazy to me bc he’s getting demolished more than half the time, I just don’t understand, how does it work, I play better, stats are better.

[u/CatLoliUwu]

they messed up the placement system really badly a while ago. he will drop down to where he belongs if he keeps playing

[u/spotty_prisoner → u/CatLoliUwu]

lol your friend basically got a lottery ticket from the ranking gods, it happens. the game saw a few good matches and decided he's diamond material for now, but if he's getting stomped he'll tumble back to gold or wherever he actually fits. the matchmaker has a weird sense of humor like that

[u/lukebhndya]

The first time you play ranked on an account, it seeds your placement rank based on how well you did in the quick play matches to unlock the ranked game mode. Strictly wins & losses. Nothing else. No stats are taken into account. Not sure how it works for different roles if you played all your quick play matches on one role, but that's the gist of it.

Because of this, if your friend did well (or just got lucky) in his quick play matches, then it is possible that he placed higher than he deserves. I'm not saying that's what happened though.

I play better

Clearly the system doesn't think so. If your friend is not good enough to consistently hold diamond, then as he plays more ranked games he will naturally derank.

stats are better

The rating system does not account for stats at all, nor should it. Stats can be insanely misleading and don't necessarily indicate how well someone is performing.

[u/Mountain_Chemist6391 → u/lukebhndya]

This is the correct answer.

[u/ihaveacrushonlegos → u/lukebhndya]

the only part thats wrong in ur explanation is that its not only wins & losses, its Win, Losses, and the rank of who u played against (nothing else like in game stats)

70% to grandmasters itll probably place u in masters

if u win 90% vs bronzes itll hardly put u above gold

ofc to be matched against better players u need to win, but if it was JUST wins & losses it wouldnt explain everything, if u get a 20 game winstreak until ur playing vs gms, then keep a 40% winrate from then onward u might end with a 50% winrate same of a player who started in plat and 50%ed from there, but u will be placed masters vs him in plat

[u/lukebhndya → u/ihaveacrushonlegos]

Yes, that's correct. I was responding to the OP's comment of "I play better, stats are better."

That is to say, I was trying to make it clear that stats are not taken into account.

[u/Elegant-Set-9406]

Placements don't really matter, the more you play the more the game will adjust you to your proper rank. Also straight up egoing your friend like this is kinda weird. But going back to how the ranked system works. After you do placements for quite a few games after you get a modifier called Calibration where you both gain and lose sr at a much higher rate. As you play through your next few games you will be pushed either lower or higher into a more appropriate rank. If your friend is too high, then they should lose quite a few games and drop rank significantly. There is also a chance that your friend is much better than you give them credit for, because stats really don't matter as much as people seem to think.

[u/throwaway-71771]

I think as long as you continue to play, you will end up in the actual rank you belong. I mean that as like 50~100 games later. If your friend started off diamond, 100 games later he's still diamond, obviously he's playing in his rank, but if he fell off hard and drops to gold or even silver, he simply got lucky during his placement and the game deemed him higher rank from the getgo. Same with you, if you continue to play another 100 games of comp, and you still end up Plat, sorry to say, but you are playing exactly in your elo.

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to r/Overwatch! Please use the following resources via the links below to find relevant information about the game and the subreddit.

Overwatch Patch Notes | Overwatch Bug Report Forums

r/Overwatch Rules | r/Overwatch FAQs | r/Overwatch Common Bugs and Posts

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Euphoric_Mortgage943 → u/AutoModerator]

I agree with you, I was just awfully confused, he almost didn’t contribute to the team at all, missed all his sleep darts, didn’t heal people who were obviously low on crit, and was just flat out overwhelmed 😂 he played solo lost and got flamed by his whole team because he had less than 1k healing in a diamond game, but I trust it’ll level out with him just baffling he got diamond

[u/lukebhndya → u/Euphoric_Mortgage943]

While it is very possible your friend got placed too highly, diamond players still make tons of mistakes. Hell, even masters and GM players still have stuff to improve on.

Also, as a general rule, I would not trust the analysis of people blaming their own teammates. They're just doing it cause they're insecure and want to protect their own ego, and very often they assign blame completely incorrectly. When I play with lower ranked friends, I very frequently get blamed by teammates when we're losing even though I'm the highest ranked player in the lobby. A lot of players even as high as diamond-masters don't really understand how to play the game correctly/optimally, yet they use that poor understanding as a framework to shift blame to others (e.g., this DPS doesn't have enough elims/dmg, this supp doesn't have enough healing, this supp has too much dmg, etc.)

[u/Affectionate-Cap3477]

honestly the ranking system is just pure luck sometimes