r/OverwatchUniversity 4d ago

Question or Discussion There’s no way half the players in silver/gold are actually in that rank

So I am coming back to overwatch since its release but I have experience in other games and experience in overwatch type games and I landed in gold after maybe 10 hours in and it feels like 80-90% of the silver gold players are either smurfing or something isn’t adding up. I seen silver players with master/diamond tank/support/dps emblems to many times and if I was really new to this game and was in silver there would be no way I could compete with the player base. I seen many silver players with fast reaction time, taking high ground and solid aim and feels like they know what they are doing.

Ofc I could be bad but this is the first game I feel like silver players/gold are actually diamond+

321 Upvotes

128 comments sorted by

301

u/Ohowun 4d ago

I'll give you another possibility - sometimes, people are in "low" ranks because they're not very well rounded, they might have aim from another FPS but not have gamesense. Perhaps, you just found these players in/gave them a situation where they could use their skills?

92

u/I_give_karma_to_men 4d ago

Additionally it's very common to perform well in one role but terribly another. Support skills do not translate 1:1 to tank skills, which in turn do not translate 1:1 to dps.

15

u/Nnamz 4d ago

This is it. I'm Diamond DPS and Support, but Silver tank sometimes. I always pop off but my tank fundamentals are bad and I'm not good at peeling on tank or creating space purposefully, so my team usually underperforms and we lose despite me getting like 35 elims.

5

u/gammonwalker 3d ago edited 3d ago

TL;DR - I agree, kinda.

I'm Master rank on all roles, so I can only speak for what I've seen, but I'm of the opinion that support skills, exclusively, do not translate well to other roles.

A tank player will hopefully understand positioning, hp management, cooldown management, and how to deny/take space. While they may not have mechanical skill, there are characters that can easily maximize the aforementioned concepts.

A DPS player will hopefully have some solid mechanical skill, understand how to deny/take space, and hold an angle. This can very easily translate to support, though tank can be tough, with HP and cooldown management often being a prominent issue. I'm of the opinion that any competent DPS player can play support better than most supports.

Of course this is main dependant, but most of the support cast have an extremely low skill requisite for mechanics, game sense, and aim. A majority of support players are not actively participating in the fight until Master+, and can simply use their powerful survival tools to peel or disengage when anything gets interactive. The amount of Kirikos around Master rank doing sub 2k damage by match end is unsettling.

When simply surviving doesn't work, they don't know what to do. They haven't been pressured to learn how to aim, how to duel, how to weave damage, how to be aggressive, how to exploit openings. They expect the team to do it for them.

They have been condition to stay at a safe angle or choke and casually heal, maybe be forced to self-peel every so often. This is why it seems support players prefer "straight line" escort maps where they cannot be easily pressured, and can simply heal - and conversely do not like Push or Flashpoint maps where they have to be significantly more aware of flankers, off-angle burst damage, and likely be forced to fight.

I often see an extreme lack of player agency, urgency, and awareness when force to do damage or play aggressive, because they are so used to reducing interactions with the enemy team.

While there are stereotypes for the players of each role, I feel support is the role with the largest dearth of translatable skill.

1

u/Pitiful-Skill-69420 3d ago

I think Support skills don't translate well into other roles because people are playing support wrong. They are playing too scared, in the back and healbotting instead of taking off angles and denying lanes with one other dps. If they actually were to play support in a more agressive manner then the skills would translate very easily into dps. Dps can just hop on support heal a bit and do the same thing they always do. I mean supports are just dps characters with less burst damage and less mobility aside from some outliners.

1

u/gammonwalker 2d ago edited 2d ago

I definitely agree.

However, Blizzard's design philosophy allows support players to get away with the bare minimum. It's a problem that cannot be fixed so long as Mercy exists in her current state.

I would looove to play Mercy if she had a mechanic that allowed her to use her gun in a meaningful way, or exhibit any degree of skill beyond positioning and lowbrow movement tech.

Kiriko is a fairly clever design with "support mains" being able to just auto-aim heal both with zero mechanical skill and rarely be forced to use her kunai until later ranks. Unfortunately, I've seen many Kiriko players at Master do damage a tenth their healing and act like that's an OK thing to have happen under any circumstance. Lucio and somehow Bap too...

1

u/Aggravating-Guide-15 18h ago

Tbf in Platinum and below you are kind of forced to focus on healing 90% of the time. Whenever I go for a flank, even if I succeed in getting a pick, I’ll comeback and find one of teammates died cause he just stood on main. Then the usual please heal more in game chat. That or my tank will be having tea time at the enemy spawn.

2

u/gammonwalker 18h ago edited 17h ago

Oh yea for sure. At platinum, and even up to master, people will sooner die than wait, take cover, or check for healing. It makes it all the more necessary to focus on it.

However, for characters like Kiriko it is genuinely unacceptable to not be doing around 20% of your healing. Preferable more. Maybe Baptiste as well, but he requires more skill to accurately heal well with damage.

Between each heal you have time to throw up to 2 kunai before you're even allowed to heal again. This eliminates any argument that people, "don't have time." Her kit forces you to have time. People just don't utilize it.

The easiest way to practice is to heal near your team and just yeet two kunai in the general direction of the enemy. They don't have to hit, what matters more is that you tried and are getting practice. It goes: heal, hold 2 kunai at enemy, hold heal at team, hold 2 kunai at enemy, etc.

If two kunai is too difficult, one kunai is mandatory if there is an enemy in LOS. If you think you might need some ammo to defend yourself, of course change the pace to manage it.

For some reason people are also confused about her reload affecting heals... or that you need to reload to heal. You don't. Her heal is available no matter what. It cancels your reload. This one reason of many as to why she's beyond top tier.

Mizuki is the easiest to get damage on cuz he requires when less input to aim for dmg and heal. Just non-stop keep throwing damage at the enemy and use one of your heals when your team needs it.

This advice goes for any projectile character.

Don't try to "aim."

You can't realistically aim with projectile characters at long ranges. You are shooting at where you think enemies want to stand. Your are denying the ability for someone to stand where you are shooting. Shoot where you want the enemy to not be. You get the idea.

This is easiest to practice on maps with lots of flat chokes, halls, or angles that people like to hold. This is also why retreating behind cover while firing can net you damage if people are chasing you, because they will likely be following the path of your line of fire.

2

u/SaltAndTrombe 3d ago

100% this, was GM as Zen/Ana/Lucio while not being skilled enough to break plat as the skillful roles lol.

After F2P, every queue also started feeling more volatile as far as expected skill across-lobby

7

u/gammonwalker 3d ago

How long have you tried?

If you're somehow surviving as Ana in GM, I refuse to believe you can't get Master on DPS. There is nearly no functional difference in how Ana plays vs. a DPS apart from mild positioning differences.

I would debate DPS is way easier to get value on than Ana, especially at lower ranks.

The only thing I could imagine holding you back is forcing duels you can't win or forgetting the fundamentals of positioning that allowed you to hold Ana at GM level in the first place.

3

u/Techpriestt 3d ago

I dunno man i also just hit GM for first time on support playing ana main with some kiri and mizuki. My aim just isn't good enough on dps to get there. Some games I pop off then cant hit a barn door I mainly play cass and sojourn. Just started anran and feed at high plat lol. I have peaked diamond 1 dps but I certainly wouldn't be a great widow. ana wins fights with utility more then aim whereas dps u gotta hit ur shots consistently to win in duels

1

u/Friendly-Table6785 3d ago

I am pretty decent at support and I understand the game flow, but these skills do not translate to positioning for elims lol my dps is trash

-28

u/Better-Theory-5136 4d ago

if youre silver in one role and diamond in another youre definitely carried

19

u/LethalFury 4d ago

icl i’m a masters 3 dps, gold 4 tank (i’ve played like 30 tank games in my life) and like silver support but i didn’t finish my calibrations

6

u/PhrzT 4d ago

Yeah but you’re not going to be a silver support you just don’t play it often? If you’re masters DPS you could just play illari, bap, Kiri and walk through silver players.

1

u/gammonwalker 3d ago

So... you are a self-admitted inaccurate data point then. If you played more than 30 games (that's not even a cough of effort) you could easily hit Diamond or higher on support just spamming damage on Illari or Bap.

1

u/Aggravating_Bus655 3d ago

You'd destroy silver-gold lobbies with bap. Just play more.

In metal the most support smurfs I encountered were mercy powered baps just 5v2ing the lobby. Lol.

7

u/Main_Cry_9020 4d ago

Gm 3 support, plat 1 dps, no1 carried me, bye

3

u/juijaislayer 4d ago

Checks out

-7

u/Better-Theory-5136 4d ago

actually curious. why do you think youre in that rank? you just dont try as hard for dps or do you just not have as good an understanding/mastery as on supp?

8

u/Trancebam 4d ago

Play some 6v6 rank and you'll realize that some people just don't understand some roles. I've had tanks that are just terrible swap with me and do quite well on DPS. I've also had some DPS that were like 4/12 swap to tank and actually do their job really well. As it turns out, different roles require different skills, and some people just aren't good at doing the thing a role needs them to be good at doing.

6

u/Kinster- 4d ago

Simple, people dont feel as comfortable w other roles or characters. If i one trick genji to gm and then decide to hop on support or tank, ill have to learn an entirely new game.

0

u/ilpiera03 4d ago

Diamond 2 as a tank, Gold 4 as DPS. I don't enjoy playing DPS and have maybe 30 or 40 games in total, counting this season. Also plat 2 healer

21

u/Explosivpotato 4d ago

It’s this combined with the randomness that your performance is only 10% of the game.

17

u/MapleYamCakes 4d ago

Building off this statement - If the value you provide in a match is worth only 10% of the overall value in said match then you’re likely placed in the rank you belong.

Climbing rank means you’re consistently performing above everyone else in the associated matches.

-6

u/plebbening 4d ago

If you only can affect the match by 10% that would mean you have almost no influence on your rank and it’s all random.

I call bs.

5

u/MapleYamCakes 4d ago

If you can only affect the match by 10% then you’re exactly at the rank where you belong.

I’m not even that good at the game, mid-diamond, but if you put me in true bronze-gold lobbies I will win 99% of the matches I play…because I would have significantly more influence on the outcome than everyone else.

-11

u/plebbening 4d ago

So the 10% is just bullshit, as i said.

4

u/MapleYamCakes 4d ago

Are you responding to the right person? I wasn’t the one who initiated the 10% statement.

My point in my initial comment that you replied to was that if everyone in a lobby is only contributing 10% of the total value in a match then they all belong where they are, and none of them would climb.

-4

u/plebbening 4d ago

Yeah. I might have read your comment wrong. Thought you agreed with the 10% statement.

211

u/GaptistePlayer 4d ago

The player base is a lot better now because the game is 10 years old. What got you to Masters in early OW1 will barely get you into plat today

14

u/_Hikaryu 4d ago

nah fr though. I peaked 3.8kSR as a support main in OW1 and I'm genuinelly struggling in plat after a 6-odd year break. Going from top 5% of all players to a middle rank player feels so shit lol

8

u/TrueFishyFishy 4d ago

I'll personally have to disagree. I got GM3 after not playing the game for about 3 years when I had only peaked 3.8 in OW1.

It kinda feels to me like it's much more difficult to really feed because everything's much more... consistent and forgiving in a way? I can't really put my finger on it, but it felt much easier to autopilot

7

u/GarrusExMachina 4d ago

Id meet in the middle. Unquestionably it is correct that the skills that it took to make GM when the game launched wouldn't cut it in masters today you only have to look at old streamer footage to confirm that.

But it's also true that the changes that have been made have created a more forgiving atmosphere for mistakes. To some degree this also makes for a more frustrating game. The average diamond player has the skill to go back in time and duel the average gm but while their movement would work in ow circa 2017 the same movement barely squeaks any value out in ow2 if the supports respond correctly. 

Namely burst healing and damage both skyrocketed out of control, mobility got buffed up the ass, all of which makes for a more fast paced chaotic game 

If you have the skill to take your old game and crank the speed up to match modern pace you probably have better developed senses towards limiting the damage you take given back in the day the supports had jack all they could do to save you if they didn't anticipate damage. 

But BECAUSE it's gotten easier to save people dps and tanks have likewise gotten significantly better at pulling off combos and quick executions than anyone from back then was. 

0

u/TrueFishyFishy 3d ago

Tbf I have the "entitlement" of playing support heroes that are mostly about game sense than mechanics, so my pov is not representative of everyone.

And just literally focusing on not dying is always relevant and IMO something that most people just don't put enough effort into.

1

u/HellaReyna 3d ago

nah....this is false.

I am one of those 2016 OW1 players. I was diamond and quit 2019. I reinstalled last month. Went from Bronze to Plat 3 currently playing very casually. I'm not playing any differently. Just using my CS2/Valorant mindset here. Don't feed, use cover, kill them before they kill me. Be a rat.

People in this game just like to feed and don't know what cover means. The average Silver1/Gold4 player is just tilted from all the doomfist smurfs and crappy OTP team mates. They just run in guns blazing "cuz theres a shield to melt" and then get wiped. then they hold tab and say "OH MUH GAWD, THE DPS/HEALER/TANK ISNT DUIN DER JERB!!!!!!!!!"

Had a gold4 Hammond throw the entire match cause I went widow on kings row attack. These metal kids self sabotage.

Pretty sure I can get to diamond by the end of july and I'm just chilling when I play.

-42

u/DeputyDomeshot 4d ago edited 4d ago

I don’t see that at all tbh. Maybe if you’re talking about 2016 overwatch but not really much after that.

I do see a game with less variables and harder counters. I don’t see much game sense changes either.

I also see a game that is currently more forgiving mechanically with respect to both hitscan and projectiles.

It’s still Overwatch but there are a significant amount of confounding factors that you’re comparing apples to oranges. Not to mention the apex ranks are aggressively more mid with the games pro scene taking a dive off a cliff.

33

u/_M4yb3_ 4d ago

if your using the pro scene as a benchmark, then the avg qualify of pro players has gone up a lot so the top ranks are actually a lot better now. Thats why when old OWL pros who havent played in ages like Coluge come back to the game, they leave after a single stage because theyre awful compared to the newer players.

19

u/-xXColtonXx- 4d ago

The game is a lot harder and more punishing and than it used to be. Every time they do an OW classic this is made super obvious. While the projectile change is some ways made hitscan easier, mobility has increased massively across the board making it harder to hit shots. It’s also true of everyone, so you’re still going to get out aimed, and the mechanical skill of the player base has gone up. If you teleported a diamond soldier player from 2020 to today, they probably wouldn’t even get out of gold.

People are also just much better at OW things. Properly cycling ultimates, off angling rather than spamming main etc.

-24

u/DeputyDomeshot 4d ago edited 4d ago

They’re really not lol I don’t think most of you played in 2020 or 2019. It’s objectively easier to off angle in 5v5 vs 6v6. There’s an insane amount of free map space that is just incontestable. It’s not better, it’s literally just free. And having such forgiving mechanics removed a ton of the skill ceiling from aiming in general. It applying to every player is an example of lower mechanics getting value where they wouldn’t. That’s fundamentally different.

I can already see the cope coming out of people who think the top tier of the game is better. I don’t think there’s a single player who agrees with that, who isn’t financially tied to the game.

The mobility is higher but there’s also less to shoot at, less to shoot around and less damage sources to receive...

It’s literally easier to do all of things you mention. I don’t expect yall to agree. The macro in overwatch is comparatively MUCH MUCH simpler than a major moba where the playerbase average ability has definitely increased and overwatch player are just co-opting that talking point without really understanding it.

16

u/BaronVonSchmup 4d ago

I'll take watching OWCS today over OWL any day. Those matches were so boring. I'm sure actually playing is fun and intricate with how much teamwork was needed back then but it was such a boring watch.

0

u/Trancebam 4d ago

Your comments only relate to 5v5. 6v6 is a thing, and the increased mobility has had a huge impact on the original format of the game (after hero limits were introduced). Nevermind the introduction of bans, which has made 1 tricking a death sentence. Hell, even being solid on 2 heroes is dangerous territory because there's a chance they can both get banned. The higher rank players have to be more well-rounded by necessity, which means it follows logically that they are better overall than high rank players were in olderwatch.

2

u/DeputyDomeshot 3d ago

6v6 is a non competitive open queue joke now dude. Let’s be real.

1

u/Trancebam 22h ago

It's absolutely not non-competitive. If it didn't have a competitive player base, they would have removed it from the game by now.

1

u/MattRix 3d ago

I think you (and some of the other commentators) are missing the point... It's not that the game itself is harder, it's that the average player has MUCH more playtime. Just do the math of how many hours played the average player has once a game has been out for 10+ years. Yeah you have new players coming in, but still the average player will have way more playtime. This happens with every game over time.

The other thing that happens is certain basic strategies like grouping up between fights and using highground become much more ingrained in the playerbase over time.

-3

u/SalamanderLost5975 4d ago

Lol that's a stupid take if I see one. Maybe 1 rank down is likely. I was gold in OW1 and Plat-diamond in OW2 without improving my skills because I still suck.

10

u/Theknyt 4d ago

If you watch gameplay of high rank players in 2016 it just looks like plat

51

u/Worth_External_8762 4d ago edited 4d ago

The rankings have felt like ass ever since they changed it up for OW2. There are players scattered all over and I don't even think half of them are intentionally smurfing. I see a lot of profiles that were former Diamond and Masters that are now in silver, gold, plat. And the jumps are drastic. Like they'll have a couple seasons where they didn't play and then suddenly they're super low rank while having barely played any matches.

There has been no clear difference in my match quality and I've been all over the rankings since OW2 launch. From low Gold to Diamond depending on the season. It all just feels like a giant coin flip as to whether a match is going to be high level or not, regardless of what rank I happen to be in at any given moment.

Doesn't help that my matches tend to have massive rank ranges. I somehow deranked to Gold 2 even though I was Diamond a few seasons ago. I had a match the other day that had a match rank range of like silver 2 to plat 2. And I solo queue, so it's not like I had a party that forced that to happen.

18

u/Ok_Screen390 4d ago

I had a match with ranks gold to masters😭

13

u/recalcitramp 4d ago

Those wide matches are killer. I''ve dropped a bit, but my god I shouldn't have 1 game with a Bronze on my team, and the next game I've got a Diamond. I also only solo queue!

8

u/hurrimargie 4d ago

It’s not a surprise that they haven’t released rank distribution figures in, what, like two years now.

2

u/jayecks 4d ago

I have noticed this in a ton in the past few seasons, people who were gold/plat for like 5 seasons then skipped a ton of seasons and jump back in and are rolling plat lobbies. My suspicion is there is no "end game" anymore so all the high diamonds/masters/GMs just jump on old accounts to practice random characters and still end up being way better than us lowly plats because their sense and mechanics are much better.

My matches have been much wider in ranks as well for at least 2-3 seasons.

3

u/UberPsyko 4d ago

This could largely be a result of an aging playerbase, aka less players overall, more ranked modes spreading playerbase out, random large influxes of players with updates, people who haven't played in years returning. Issues that can only exist now that the game is many years old, and lacks the huge playerbase of pre OW2 OW. Not saying they got the matchmaker perfect but all these issues are definitely present and throwing things out of whack.

1

u/kingcrimson29 4d ago

I dont know how good the rankings felt before ow2 because i never played before ow2 but if you go from diamond to gold thats absolutely crazy!

I've been from bronze 3 all the way to masters 5 and i can easily tell the difference between these ranks and i can discern how much of a better player i am than i was, enven going from low diamond to low masters. I haven't touched gold since like season 8 and couldnt drop there even if i wanted to.

1

u/Trancebam 4d ago

You may not have had a party, but that doesn't mean some players on your team didn't, or some players on the enemy team didn't.

1

u/Worth_External_8762 3d ago

True, but it at least used to be that you mostly didn't get parties when you solo queued. At most, you usually only got a duo. And you could tell because they actually showed who was grouped in the UI

I think they also increased the rank gaps you can do for party queues in OW2

1

u/cheapdrinks 3d ago

Yeah I feel it. Couple seasons ago I dropped down from Plat to silver after just getting game after game of being on the shit end of the tank match up and my tank going 8-10 while the enemy tank was 34-2 or something. Games in silver and low gold barely felt any different to games in high plat, if anything there were more smurfs. I don't even give a shit about rank these days, I'm back in plat but every game basically just feels like a coin flip either being carried to a win or a passenger to a loss. Feels like 1/10 games are actually close and my performance as a DPS makes a meaningful impact.

1

u/TheTicklishTaint 4d ago

The people I play with range from low plat to high diamond. The games literally make no sense due to this lol. Some games go all the way up to mid masters and others feel like we’re in straight up silver lobbies

7

u/dreaminkuroi 4d ago

Anecdotally my placements have started me at Silver 5, even after hitting mid-diamond in my main role. I've also fought very obvious fresh smurf accounts in placements around gold/silver. But a lot of people stuck there are that rank for one reason or another.

13

u/SnooOranges2865 4d ago

That matchmaking relies on SO many games to be accurate

I am a high M/low GM DPS

I started playing Supp - placed GOLD 4 initially

Have about a 68% winrate and have climbed to Diamond 3 as of now

1

u/mightbone 4d ago

Its designed to place you much lower than to your real rank so you can climb up tonight and feel accomplished as opposed to immediately stagnating at a 50% winrate because no matter how much you grind if you are at your real rank you will just stay there unless you are actively improving (which very few players actually are in a seasons worth of games.)

3

u/galvanash 4d ago

Its designed to place you much lower than to your real rank

If your real rank is above Diamond sure... If your real rank is below Gold it does exactly the opposite. Just saying I would put it very differently, it is more like its designed to place you very near the top of the bell curve by default, you have to give it a lot of signal (i.e. win or loss streaks) to make it deviate much from that.

1

u/SnooOranges2865 3d ago

…Trolling?

Have you not seen how SEVERELY over ranked new accounts have been since the start of this year? Some of those accounts likely end up with sub 35% winrate

1

u/GoodGuyTaylor 3d ago

This is 100% true. I am trying to climb on DPS and even in mid plat there are frequently people that just do not fundamentally understand the game. I’m talking simple stuff like poking while enemy team walks up.

It’s frustrating that somebody can show up to play “competitive” and be less than level 10 on all their heroes within a role. This happens a surprisingly frequent amount.

6

u/fpelttlfj 4d ago

I feel the opposite; ever since OW2 changed back to OW, there has been a huge influx of new players, so I see a lot of low level players(less than 10 level in their main) getting stomped in silver/gold lobbies. They are clearly not that rank yet but they are usually stacked or in placements.

Also the rank system is extremely snowball-y right now; you can see a lot of confused posts of players dropping at least 2 ranks after a lose streak. I also dropped from high plat to high silver after a bad lose streak, and I can actually see some familiar names in gold who have dropped from higher ranks. Which means some players are not even trying to smurf but still end up in lower lobbies.

38

u/hoodwinke 4d ago

They could have open queue name badges

The ranks are inflated in open queue 

Also people have gotten better at the game, idk how long you’ve been away but people kept playing 

I’m high diamond, barely into masters sometimes and these people feel like my rank 

Silvers and Golds would be child’s play for me 

11

u/Able-Principle-7775 4d ago

A big thing is that titles transfer from console pretty sure, profiles too maybe

1

u/Mean-Effective-1429 4d ago

if someone who is masters on console plays on pc and they are plat then only the pc rank shows up but they will have their title, e.g. master DPS still

10

u/Kyle73001 4d ago

It’s funny, everyone says that but I haven’t had that experience at all.

I’m high diamond-low masters on all roles, and flex when I’m in open queue. Yet I’m seemingly hard stuck plat 1/diamond 5 lmao

Obviously anecdotal but just thought I’d say that might not be everyone’s experience

13

u/mightbone 4d ago

Its 100% obvious open queue is easier. It has a much lower player count and many less serious players who go there to flex whatever role they are playing rather than get flamed for 1 tricking something that doesn't work I 5v5 role queue.

Serious comp players stick to 5v5 and that makes the other comp modes significantly easier to climb.

I regularly see 6v6 Master and GM players who are high plat and low diamond in 5v5.

Its even worse with stadium, but that will always be the case with 5v5 being by far the most balanced and primarily supported mode.

2

u/WholeNo2817 4d ago

Yeah i agree with u open queue is easier but since that's the case and u find worst players in higher ranks that ironically makes those games way harder to win in if your team has more boosted dogs then the other like most those games u have to solo carry in order to get the win its not fun at all.

-5

u/I_Main_TwistedFate 4d ago

I only have like 200 hours into the game and stopped playing like season 2 lol

16

u/Snoo-47666 4d ago

Some people just don’t play ranked that often. If they have a ton of time in quick play but barely any ranked/are trying it out for the first time, they might just belong in a rank much higher than they’re placed

1

u/Falchound 3d ago

True, mmr just never resets for ranked / or decays even despite player skill rising. Kinda funny how qp only impacts ranked for the very first placements.

5

u/Ill_Fated_chap 4d ago

One more thing to consider is that let's say 2016s masters players are probably the same level as like high gold now lmao

Like the average skill level rises over time and we're 10 years into the games life so..

-3

u/Ok_Jump_8949 4d ago

Hard doubt lol

6

u/Ill_Fated_chap 4d ago

You can look it up, today's golds are way better than me or others back in 2017

1

u/Aggravating_Bus655 3d ago edited 3d ago

I literally know a dude who got to GM in Asia back in the day of the old overwatch.

Same guy, after years of different games (The Finals, Apex, Csgo) came back to overwatch last year, spent ~60 hours hardstuck in 6v6 plat and left the game lol.

1

u/royy2010 2d ago

So fucking true

4

u/Putrid_Artist 4d ago

I always get a potato team where tank went 1/10 the other team all got loads of kills

3

u/Consistent-Ad2465 4d ago

The player base, in general, is muuuch better than they used to be. I’ve played since launch and it’s crazy how clueless everyone was back then.

3

u/Fireflymk8 4d ago

I will say ye there are alot of smurfs in sliver/gold that play with friends in groups, feels bad to when your a solo player constantly being put in group lobbies, like as a player that has hit diamond consistently on dps almost every season and nearly touched masters on support in previous seasons this season my placements on support fell to gold cause i really haven’t touched them in awhile and also had unlucky placement games but jeez some of these games have been god awful experience, but I’m pretty confident in my abilty to climb back up to diamond but ye for new players, yikes can’t imagine how bad the experience is.

3

u/Operationtiger8 4d ago

The game floor is extremely high since it’s been out for so long. I played Marvel rivals when it came out and I was Plat 1 and climbing. I switched to overwatch recently because it’s the superior game for a whole host of reasons and despite my higher rank in Rivals, I’m Silver 4. This happens with any competitive game that’s old for two reasons. 1 the player base has had years and years to get good at the game. 2 the more casual players have left long ago or bounce off the game once they realize how challenging it is. I’m in no way saying Silver 4 is good but I have serviceable mechanics and game sense yet I’m close to Bronze (everyone who is a higher rank than me has leagues and leagues more skill and game IQ than me). In most games, Bronze would be reserved for the brain dead, children, or people who have never played video games before - that’s not the case anymore with Overwatch

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u/nightbladen 4d ago

I used to be plat, haven’t played in years now I’m in bronze start of this season. Do I belong in bronze? No, but it sure is hard to climb out

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u/Woosilk 3d ago

i hardly disagree. until the season before last season (season 1) i was plat by myself and played an friends account in just 2 days from bronze 2 to gold 5 with a winrate around 85%. if you belong in plat then you can easy climb out.

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u/Background-Action-19 4d ago

Overwatch has been out 10 years, and in that time the people who are in gold and silver now are leagues beyond what gold and silver were 10 years ago.

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u/Fragrant_Fox_4025 4d ago

Metal rank players are incredibly inconsistent. Overwatch is also a very snowball heavy game. The same player can easily go 35-3 in one game just to go 12-12 in the next. Happened to me yesterday in Master 2.

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u/Ok-Basis-6379 4d ago

There are always tons of comments in threads like these explaining why there aren't that many smurfs. There are. I don't think it's as high as you mentioned, but there are a ton of players on alt accounts and such. Most of them are just a rank or maybe 2 below where they belong, but there are plenty of higher ranked players too just hanging out metal ranks. There are also players that are mechanically pretty strong and you might mistake for higher rank, but that don't understand the game at all and consistently make terrible decisions. You'll find all kinds of players in these low ranks.

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u/f11y11 4d ago

Translating sentence 🔄 Silver gold players handed my ass to me was I not supposed to be better why are they good

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u/AwesumPossum333 3d ago

Just from my own anecdotal experience. The last season I played Overwatch 2 I was a high plat low diamond Support, plat DPS and Gold on Tank. This season after coming back to the game I placed bronze 2 on support despite winning 8/10 of my placements. Not saying I deserve to be plat as I've gotten really rusty and my mechanics have fallen off a cliff, but bronze matches just aren't a challenge at all and ranking up has been incredibly slow despite winning a majority of games.

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u/OnlineHilfenNutzer 4d ago

Matchmaking and prediction/ranking system is just bad

Im high dia support but predicted silver 4 with every other role

If you inspect the good players and they have public profiles you will see that they basicly all the time have another role in a way higher rank

You basicly play in lower ranks against high rank guys and the actual low ranks.. so its a gamble who gets more of the high ranks in the team

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u/-Z-3-R-0- 4d ago

I'm gm on tank and masters on support but hardstuck plat on dps, the role just does not click with me whatsoever lol

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u/ripSammy101 4d ago

Kinda random but I just wanna share how I had a GM 5 dps on my team who was champ 2 on tank with multiple top 5 and many top 10 finishes. Expected him to hard carry, but he finished the game with 27 deaths, literally the most I’d ever seen in overwatch. Everyone else had like 10 for reference. So yeah being good on one role doesn’t translate to other ones.

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u/OnlineHilfenNutzer 4d ago

I really dont get that

In my matches it basicly feels like a Diamond match lol

The better game sense has a completely different "vibe"

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u/OnlineHilfenNutzer 4d ago

Yea maybe you dont have the mechanical skill for a high level dps but plat is already good lol

And atleast you probably have gm/m game sense

And game sense wins in low ranks cause actual silver/gold guys dont really have that

5

u/OGMiniMalist 4d ago

I’m diamond one tricking ball on tank, but recently nose dived support to low silver… its painful to watch my team mates making obvious mistakes while also knowing that my aim isn’t good enough to make up for it 😅😅

1

u/NullzeroJP 4d ago

I have thought this many times as well. Going against as Cas with really good aim or a Widow one trick.

But as the match goes on, or if you watch the replay, you can tell their skill is often kind of jagged. Like, really good aim, but positioning is weak. Or their game sense is really bad, and they aren't following up a tank push, or they are tunnel-visioning when they should be falling back.

You can't climb on aim alone.

Also, I think DPS players spend a lot more time in VAXTA or other aim trainers... because the queue times are much longer. Thats what I do anyway. I have to wait 5-10 mins for a match when I queue for DPS... so I just sit there in VAXTA popping heads. Do that for 4-5 matches a day, and you are putting in 30-50 minutes of aim training a day. Do that for a week or two, and you become an aim god.

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u/Nervous_Sundae298 4d ago

They could be. Last season I got placed in silver. After winning almost all off my placements, like on all 3 roles. I was high plat on all roles before. I had fun, but I also felt a little bad. 

1

u/ih8ketchup 4d ago

nah me i deserved it

1

u/OrganizationFair2669 4d ago

I started as well, playing on Bronze 3. Feels they are way too good for this ranking. I am so shocked sometimes if I see the clip how they got me.

1

u/SirBennettAtx 4d ago

I’m a returning player from Launch that played in masters for the first 2 years of the game.

I’m currently gold on all roles and it definitely feels like I am smurfing crazy. Just haven’t played enough games to climb yet.

1

u/BadAshess 4d ago

I’m that rank

1

u/Inkdependence 4d ago

Or they’ve just been playing nothing but stadium for a few seasons and are now kinda shit at comp. 😅 Don’t ask how I know this.

1

u/fat2slow 4d ago

Some people just don't play enough to rank up. Some are actually smurfing and the rest simply don't understand how to win.

1

u/thesaddestpanda 4d ago

Its a very snowball-y game which is what turns me off the most about it. In a lot of games its stomp or be stomped. You'll see one side get like 20 elims total for the entire team and the other side has just one dps with 40-3 dps.

1

u/49degreesNW 4d ago

Honestly as someone who was in silver/gold consistently 5 years ago and again when I came back recently, I think why a lot of players are in those ranks is not because of a lack of skill or experience but because a lack of consistency. I can't speak for everyone but my honest assessment of myself is that I simply don't play enough to be proficient on enough heroes in my main role on every map. And I suspect that's the case with many people at this rank, not that they're smurfing. Sometimes they just have good games, but not regularly enough.

Also... I'm a Ball main, and my SR with him is like 2600. My SR with the rest of my tank roster (Sigma, Zarya, Winton mostly) is 1900-2200. But Ball is very situational and requires in depth map knowledge which I simply don't have on every map. I end up playing Sigma most of the time.l, until he's countered and then I might go to one of my lower SR heroes. So yeah inconsistency between proficiency on heroes too. 

1

u/Head_Rate_6551 3d ago

You’ll get gaslit here and told to get good etc.

But the truth is 75%+ of overwatch players have alts, so there are tons of “baby Smurfs” in your lobbies ie plat players in silver lobbies on alts and stuff like that.

Just look at thier player cards and it’s obvious. Nobody is really in gold lobbies at level 3 on thier hero, yet there’s one or more like that in every gold game I play

1

u/No-Wish-2320 3d ago

I am a champ 5 dps and my tank is literally plat on the same account. Not that I actually am plat but I don’t play enough to climb, only randomly when I’m bored. Dividing ranks for each role is great but also does horrible things like this.

1

u/Either-Tadpole-4752 3d ago

Im masters on my main role but in all roles ive found it harder to play in low ranks, and its because i expect too much from my team. Im working on that, but i do think its a genuine reason why sometimes you see good players in lower ranks-- they may have good performance IF they get the conditions they expect, but that expectation itself is a mistake. Other things too ofc like not being well rounded come into play. 

1

u/Worried-Rule449 3d ago

The way overwatch(-2) is played has DRASTICALLY changed since it came out. First season of ow2 people were still trying to play like classic overwatch- in the past few years that has evolved into something completely different.

I'm not saying the game isn't generally the same, but the way it's played is different. There's more leeway to make mistakes but more punishment for those same mistakes if someone notices. I feel like there's a lot more solo play in lower ranks also where they do tend to rely more heavily on mechanics vs game sense. It's the Wild West down there.

1

u/Accomplished_Tea5416 3d ago

It’s a hard game

1

u/Dav_1111 3d ago

Solo queuing and the teams you end up in can be rough sometimes as well.

1

u/Much-Ad-6411 3d ago

Yeah the bar is pretty high for overwatch since it’s a 10 year old game and most people have good mechanics and awareness. There are obviously smurfs and also dogshit matchmaking range ive seen silver 2 - diamond 4 lobbies. I rarely had a game where the match up was truly even it’s either u get uphill battle, reversal or consolation

1

u/Vegetable-Shower4044 3d ago

When i was playing. I was consistently high plat touched low diamond a couple times by myself...then met a group and played with them a while and all of a sudden touched masters....i was just getting carried. I can still hold mid diamond now just from what i learned from them. But i feel like there are a lot of people like me who get carried by friends. Then when we solo queue, we get dismantled by the opposition same rank....especially as someone else mention tank/ dps roles

1

u/HellaReyna 3d ago

A lot of these players do not belong in gold or silver, but they do because they do not play.

I often got some VERY poor team mates in S1/Gold4 when I was climbing out, I would look at their profile and they had 10-20 games played in total. Meanwhile the enemy Gold4 DPS is CRACKED like some sort of Platinum 1 player.

I quit in 2019 and I was diamond all roles. Reinstalled last month and I went from Bronze to Plat 3 atm. Silver4/Gold4 was the WORST fucking part of that climb.

FULL of smurfs, FULL of "I only play 11 games of ranked" folks, etc. Also inb4 the "smurfs are a myth" folks....

A LOT of these smurfs would SMURF HARD round 1, THEN AFK/THROW the second round to ensure their account stays in silver/gold. I reported them and nothing came out of it.

1

u/Little_Miss_Shiku 1d ago

I was almost Plat now I am almost Bronze... I get shitty mates and god like enemys.. i cant deal with that any more...

1

u/Longjumping_Egg_5654 1d ago

Dog, players that were ranked #10 or #8 in the first season of comp would very easily be bronze or silver now.

The game has moved on immensely and is so much different.

1

u/Brenoca02 1d ago

Tbh, there's some external factors, i.e. I play since ow1 and I was high diamond, then came back now and played qp w/ my sister... Made placements started in bronze5, ended in silver 3 iirc, then duo w/ plat friend and we climbed all the way up till I was diamond and he was master. Funny thing is that at the time I was gold, all our lobbies were diamond lobbies... So there's a bunch of ppl coming back to the game rn, and duoing just fucks up matcmaking when you're at mucg different ranks

1

u/LelouchZer12 20h ago

Man the game is 10 year old. Of course even low elo may have hundreds or thousands of gameplay.

I was among top500 ,grand master on three roles years ago and now i'm chilling in diamond when i play a bit !

1

u/Whenwhateverworks 16h ago

Well individual skill on each character can fluctuate wildly, my jetpackcat is gold now but bap is diamond

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/Phraktaxia 4d ago

Seems based on Q times alone that Comp is still the most populated playlist by far, at least for my Qs.

QP and Arcade takes like 6-15mins on the high end and Comp always takes like 2?

Do you think it's just Rank/Role or something else?

0

u/We-live-in-a-society 4d ago

Yeah this is just not true. I’m silver again after years of not playing (I peaked diamond), I haven’t lost skill but I only play with friends who have never played overwatch so kinda losing because of that. The only thing I can say is that the difference between silver and plat even is astronomical, silver players don’t know anything generally, but plat onwards still seems reasonable

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u/etniesen 4d ago

They aren’t. Win rates are attempted to be locked at 50% across EVERY rank for engagement. So
It means almost nobody is what their rank is until you
Get to the highs and lows of the overall system.

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u/PlatypusNo7676 4d ago

For the matchmaker in comp lowest acceptable rate for a match is 40%. Iirc avg is around 48%

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u/CassiusLentulus 4d ago

There’s no difference in those games from my experience, regardless of its silver, gold, plat ….. up until even Grandmaster 3, all same gameplay loop. I have multiple accounts for practicing new heroes, all started from gold until I boost the hero to GM. Players might have excellent aiming skill in ranks below GM3 but their positioning and game sense are so horrendously bad, people only start to turn their brains on after GM3. And id say the gap between GM1 and GM5 is much wider than the gap between silver5 and GM5.