A long maintenance last night to patch in fixes brought with it some interesting changes. According to the patch notes, several bugs have been fixed which hints at issues with the ranking system, especially for Junkrat players.
Fixed several issues causing some players obtain a skill rating that's higher than their actual rating
Note: A very small number of people were affected by these issues, but those who were affected will have their skill rating adjusted appropriately
During PTR testing for Season 2, changes were made to the formulas that governed skill rating calculations. This change was implemented because a number of players were found to have placed too high during placements.
The change had only been in place two days before Season 2 suddenly went live early on September 1. Did the unfixed formula go live? How will the adjustment take place? If the PTR was any indication, players affected will start seeing major skill rating drops while gaining only 2 SR per win, which may pose a bit of a shock to the system.
The more concerning issue is whether a promised fix to support ranking had been implemented, and whether supports are still ranking lower than their DPS/Tank counterparts. A post confirming that Lucio and Mercy had been placing too low was made by Jeff Kaplan, with a fix promised as "in flight". However, no mention has been made of this fix in recent patch notes.
The fact that there was still an issue with ranking is not reassuring for early Season 2 players, supports in particular. Anecdotal posts on the forums suggest that supports are still receiving less SR than other roles.
Fixed a bug preventing Junkrat’s RIP-Tire from receiving credit for kills, achievements, and other stats
This is a cause for concern among Junkrat players, especially considering his popularity at the Silver and Gold tiers.
Individual performance in Overwatch is derived from your score/min in a game. Junkrat's ultimate is one of the most common ways for him to get a large amount of score in a short time. For example, if his tire performs a team kill on the point, he not only misses out on +600 score for eliminations, he loses score for killing on the objective.
In the same post about supports ranking too low, Junkrat was listed as another example of a hero that had been placing lower than others. If this was due to the bug which has just been fixed, players who've used Junkrat in Competitive play or placements may well have placed too low or not received the SR they should have.
We've previously suggested waiting until later in Season 2 to place. The Season is approaching its 2 week mark, and it may be prudent to wait one more week — especially support players — to see if any new issues surface.
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