The Average Player's look at Ranking in Competitive Overwatch

This post discusses how rank gains/losses likely works in Overwatch's Competitive mode. Blizzard has not released detailed information on how the ranking algorithm works, so the information here is very much up for discussion. Information is based on Blue posts on the official forums, forum/Reddit discussions, data from MasterOverwatch and corroborated by personal experience.

This post will be updated as more information becomes available.

What Goes Into Competitive Ranking 

According to this post by Blizzard CM Lylirra, when calculating your rank gain/loss at the end of a match, Overwatch takes these factors into account:

1) Your rank vs Match Making Rating (MMR)
2) Individual Performance
3) Win/Loss Streaks

Given the personal nature of these factors, this is why players in the same game will find that they do not rank up or down equally on win/loss.

Rank vs MMR

There are two types of ratings at work in competitive Overwatch, of which only your skill rating, or rank, is visible. What determines your opponents is your hidden MMR, a more complex calculation of a player's skill level based on a number of variables.

A great explanation for how MMR works can be found here, This post by Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan also describes how MMR generally works in Overwatch.

According to Kaplan, MMR is the most important factor in determining match ups. In a team setting, the team's average MMR is used to determine a match up.

MMR will always rise or drop faster than your skill rating. If there is a significant difference between your rank and hidden MMR, you will gain or lose more rank until the gap is closed.

For example, if you go on an extended win-streak and have an MMR that's higher than normal for your rank, the system will increase your rank gains until you reach the rank that your MMR indicates you should be at. The opposite will happen if you lose a number of matches.

Similarly, if you play vs a team with higher MMR, you'll gain more rank on a win and lose less on a loss. This partially explains why players with different ranks in a group will gain or lose different amounts of rank.

Individual Performance

If you're looking to maximize rank gains while minimizing losses, this is where you'll have the most control. Overwatch measures individual performance by having actions that contribute towards the map objectives grant you Score.

Generally, pushing a payload, capturing a point, getting eliminations and destroying enemy turrets generate score. The more score you have, the better.

Given the varying length of matches, Overwatch uses average score, or the amount of score you're generating per minute (score/min) to track how well your character is doing. The game then compares your average score to other players using the same character on the same map.

A visual indicator that you're doing well on score/min is if you're on fire, and spend most of the match on fire.

The meter below your HP bar is your On-Fire meter. it increases when you generate score. Your character will declare that they're on fire at about 210 score, although the meter goes up to 300 score. Score decays at a rate of 4 per minute, so if you're not generating score for a prolonged period, you stop being on fire.

In addition to the standard metrics, every character can also generate score based on character-specific mechanics, which you can see on the bottom right of the screen while hitting the tab key:

Character-specific metrics

The screenshot above shows the metrics Lucio is scored on, so each Lucio player's personal performance is gauged via the number of defensive/offensive kill assists and sound barriers in each game. Watch this blog for character-specific guides to score in the future.

Since your skill rating gain/loss is based on comparison to the historical data of the same characters used on the same maps, rather than to the rest of your team, medals do not appear to count towards skill rating calculations.

If you used several characters in a match, Overwatch will weight your score based on the proportion of time spent on each character. So if you spent 40 per cent of your time as Lucio and 60 per cent as Ana, your rank gain/loss will take 40 per cent from your performance as Lucio, and 60 per cent from playing Ana.

Win/Loss Streaks

When you win or lose around three games in a row, the game starts to become uncertain about your skill level. This results in your MMR being increased or decreased at a higher rate. As previously mentioned, MMR increases or decreases faster than skill rating, which results in larger gains or losses after the third or so game in the streak.

If the win or loss streak is broken, there is likely to still be a large gap between your skill rating and MMR, thus the change to your skill rating will be minimal. This may make it a good idea to keep going after three consecutive wins and taking a break to recover after three straight losses.

Is there any aspect of the skill rating system you'd like to know more about or that we might have missed? Let us know in the comments!