Blizzard shares Overwatch 2 stats showing how broken matchmaking is

pcgamesn.com:

If your Overwatch 2 competitive matchmaking has felt off lately, you aren’t alone. Blizzard has taken dramatic steps to try and salvage the narrative around the matchmaking system for its hero-driven multiplayer game, admitting, “we’re at risk of sounding like a broken record.” Instead, game director Aaron Keller lays out some Overwatch 2 stats and graphs to detail just where the system is failing, and what the current plans are for the future.

Keller acknowledges that matchmaking is a big bugbear for many players and admits that, “‘We’re working on it and it’s getting better’ isn’t the best message, especially when players are experiencing bad matches.” So, instead of simply offering vague hand-waving and promises, he provides us with some statistical insights as part of the team’s continued push for better communication with the community.

Keller notes that changes made over the week prior have “brought down the skill gap between players in a match significantly for high and low MMR matches.” To display this, he points to three charts (seen below) and highlights two recent spikes that caused significant gaps between players, with some as far as ten ranked divisions apart in the worst 1% of cases.

He remarks that some of the skill gap is almost unavoidable due to players grouping up, something that allows for players even as high as Masters to group with others who are up to five divisions apart from their current skill ranking. However, a bizarre tweak made in Overwatch 2 season 3 had a distinctly negative impact, where developer changes made across all queue types – competitive, unranked, and arcade – were all tied together.

Whether intentional or not, Keller says that these modes will now be treated separately again