Many games have skill-based matchmaking, but few strike a balance that keeps players happy. Of course, that doesn’t mean that we’re correct every time we blame a loss on the matchmaking, but it’s definitely a formula that’s easy to get wrong.
TakeMarvel Rivals, for example. While it was near-universally adored at launch, players havequickly become frustrated with the competitive mode, arguing that the matchmaking system is busted, which isn’t helped by the fact thatthere are no placement matches. Instead, everyone starts at the bottom and has to climb.
Overwatch 2has placement matches, which already take some of the better players out of lower ranks, but that isn’t all that goes into the formula. Now,Blizzardhas pulled back the curtain on how it pairs us up with teams and opponents in Overwatch 2, and there’s a lot more to consider than you’d think.
Here’s How Matchmaking In Overwatch 2 Works
Thisblog postwas broken down byEsports Insiderand explains how we end up in our Overwatch 2 games. First of all, everyone has a hidden matchmaking rating (MMR). We only see the rank, Diamond 1, Platinum 3, etc, but the game actually has a more specific score that it uses to pinpoint our individual skill. As expected, the game tries to form games made of similar MMRs, but it can also try to match us by role, rather than just having each team’s MMR add up to an even score.
As the devs explain, this system is called Role Delta, and steps in when it can’t perfectly match the MMR of both teams. So, it avoids a scenario in which one team has a tank player with a much lower MMR than the opposing tank player. If two decent team tanks are playing with DPS mains who are worse than them both, then it can still be a fair fight. The same works in reverse - even the best DPS player will struggle if their tank is getting bodied by the other one in every fight.
The blog post goes on to say that it has widened its matchmaking brackets to reduce queue times in the past, but this obviously runs the risk of matches being lower quality. Right now, the team says it won’t settle for a matchup that puts one team at a 40 percent chance of losing, and tries to keep the odds around 45/55.
While we don’t know the ins and outs of how Marvel Rivals works, wecansay that those queue times are pretty damn quick. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the matchmaking is worse, since Marvel Rivals does still have a whole lot of players (even after losing many from launch), but the match quality does leave a lot to be desired. We’ll have to wait and see if updates can address this, since NetEase does monitor fan feedback quite closely.
