Overwatch 2 developer blog: Matchmaker and competitive deep dive, part 1
Hello, heroes!
In the first part of our two-part deep dive on matchmaking and competitive we’ll look at how matchmaking works under the hood and answer some outstanding questions around how MMR is determined and factored into the system.
Ultimately, the goal of matchmaker is to create as fair matches as possible across all game modes. We know matchmaking can be a source of frustration, especially in competitive, and we’d like to recognize it doesn’t always feel like it’s meeting its goal.
In order to address your thoughts, we need to dissect the matchmaker and competitive systems separately before going into how they affect one another. In part 1, we talk about how the matchmaker works, some of the challenges we’ve faced, and some of the ways we’ve started to tackle those issues.
Our matchmaker is designed to create balanced matches. To do that, we need some approximation of each player’s skill.
Everyone has an internal matchmaking rating (MMR) that’s a numerical value to describe your skill relative to everyone else. However, MMR isn't an absolute value, meaning your MMR can change even if your personal skill stays the same. This could indicate the general population is getting better or worse compared to you. You can see this in the example below that displays player MMR in quick play, with most of us right around the middle of the curve.
Your MMR will rise over time if you improve your skill and win more games against players of your current MMR level. All our game modes, including Competitive, only look at MMR when forming a match. We never use your outward facing skill tier or division to form matches. Likewise, the rank you see in a player’s profile isn’t the same as their MMR.
We only adjust your MMR after you win or
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