Overwatch Dev Explains Matchmatking and Skill Rating Changes

Overwatch will have a ‘looking for group’ feature that allows you to choose the type of player you want to play with. Blizzard game systems developer Overwatch dev Scott Mercer has taken to the game forum and unraveled some of the mysteries of team matchmaking, and how team play affects the skill rating (SR) of the game. How do you feel when you win or lose?

“The community is quite wary of playing in groups,” says Mercer, due to common “misconceptions.” First, the majority think that you gain less SR when you win if you play in groups, and lose more SR if you lose. This is completely wrong: group play has no effect on SR at all.

“It doesn’t matter if you play solo, in groups with another player, or in groups of six. If your SR is 2800, playing with 5 other SR 2800 players, the SR changes after winning or losing just like you would solo with 5 other solo players with SR 2800,” he said.

Some people avoid playing in groups because they are afraid of meeting opponents who have been playing together for a long time. There are “many problems” with this way of thinking, says Mercer. Most parties don’t play together for very long, and the benefit of playing in groups is that you will gradually get to know your fellow players and slowly improve in the long run. The groups that know how to cooperate well, of course, will have a higher SR than those that don’t, which also means that the two groups are unlikely to meet each other (due to the difference in SR).

Mercer went on to talk through Overwatch team play data. The vast majority of games feature at least one party – out of all the matches played, only 16% of those took place between solo players. It’s worth noting that the game will attempt to match an opponent with the same number of people in your party as your party.

So, if you’re on a team full of solo players, three of the four teams you meet afterwards will also be full of solo players. But if you’re in a group of 6, 92% of the games will be against a group of 6, or at least 5-1, 4-2, 3-3, or 2-2-2.

He also revealed that, before each match, the matchmaking system calculates each team’s probability of winning based on the player’s SR. If a team has a win rate lower than 40%, the match will not be created, and the system will continue to search again. The higher your expected win rate, the lower the SR you will get if you win, and the more you lose if you lose.

Finally, Mercer talks about how team play affects your odds of winning. Surprisingly, the team that won the most was the group of 6. But it’s not as high as one might think: these teams have a win rate of close to 53% in matches, possibly because they’re also placed against other multiplayer groups. Solo players have a 49.94% win rate, much higher than groups with formations like 2-2-1-1.

If you want to read the full Mercer analysis, you can read more here (in English).

According to PCGamer