Introduction

Video games were created as a form of entertainment to give an escape from the monotony of everyday life. These games were originally meant to bring joy and a sense of adventure to the user, but now gaming has turned into something more aggressive and more competitive. Tournaments, sponsorships, and social media have created a shift in the gaming communities approach and view of video games as a whole. Games like League of Legends, DOTA, and CSGO have all created a competitive environment for serious gamers whose specific interest revolves around competition.

One of the most popular games in the current pro scene is Blizzards new FPS Overwatch. Overwatch houses a large variety of different characters and game modes that can provided hours of entertainment for days and months on end. Overwatch’s dynamic and unique play style has captured the attention of many FPS players, who have praised the game for its fresh new take on the FPS genre. Overwatch has had a great deal of success in its first year and it is only more apparent when you see the current state of the pro level community.

Blizzard has shown great initiative to promote and support the Overwatch’s pro level scene by holding many events, such as the “world cup”, where professional players are able to win large prize pools if their teams are successful. These events are meet with high positive remarks and praise in terms of sponsorship, pro involvement, and the fan entertainment experience. Blizzard has always been held in high regard among gamers and the immediate success of Overwatch has come to support that as well.

For all of Overwatch’s wonderful accomplishments it also has some flaws, and these flaws aren’t minor in scale. These flaws are not only troubling but are potentially crippling to Overwatch as a whole and threatens the games competitive extinction if allowed to continue. While that sounds overly dramatic in context there is a valid reasoning’s behind these statements.

Main body

Overwatch encourages players to progress forward from the quick play game format and into its competitive play mode once individuals have reached level 25. The competitive mode for Overwatch is meant for gamers to compete against similarly skilled players in serious and more strategic game experience. This mode has a certain expectation from the community on how it is supposed to be played and not all gamers follow that expectation. This creates a toxic, hateful, vulgar, and draining experience for everyone involved on almost all levels.

This problem starts with gamers having a pro level mindset, and that is a huge issue because average gamers aren’t pros, and yet they try to create team compositions to mimic professional strategies. This is the root for all of Overwatch’s competitive problems because if someone doesn’t fill a role that the team has considered successful then everyone focuses on that specific role as to why they lost. However the pros play as a team, practice as a team, and strategies as a team to make these compositions work. Simply joining a random game, full of strangers, and expecting a successful outcome by copying a team composition created by professional gamers is ridicules and foolish.
Team composition is important in some aspects and should be respected when it comes to having a cohesive and supportive unit, but that is not why teams fail to win matches in Overwatch. Lack of skill with game mechanics, overall map knowledge, and character positioning are far more important factors to consider when talking about a win or loss in Overwatch. You might just struggle at aiming with a mouse and that is a big indicator of your skill for an FPS. However teams don’t focus on that aspect of the game but focus specifically on the character you picked and if it fit the team composition. It doesn’t matter if you were doing well with the character you were play because you picked a bad hero to fit the team composition, and that is why the team lost in the eyes of your peers.

Think about that for a second in the context of a video game revolving around skill. Someone is being forced to play a character that they don’t do well with, and don’t enjoy playing, just to fill a roll in a team composition that is only viewed as successful because professional gamers use it. That is insanity on so many levels and you just set yourself, and your team, up to fail because you aren’t good in that specific roll. This creates a negative gaming experience for everyone involved and a negative outlook on the competitive matchmaking mode in Overwatch.

We have to ask ourselves how does this happen? Well the answer is simple when we consider the match making systems goal, which is to pair you up with players of similar skill to ensure that you have a fair match. The problem is that the system doesn’t take into consideration the role that you play most. At almost every level of match making people can get paired with team members who have the same skill rating but specifically play only support heroes, and that’s the first problem. There aren’t enough support characters for everyone to play so other players will have to fill roles that they aren’t as good with, thus creating a losing situation almost a guarantee rather than a possibility.

A YouTuber named *Stylosa* has made a great number of videos in regards to the problems with the match making system in Overwatch. In short summary Stylosa believes that the key to fixing matchmaking might be to provide users with a “role select option” when starting a search for a competitive game. This would ensure that there is no way you can end up on the same team as five other support main players. Here is a link to one of Stylosa’s videos on his views of the match making system.

While Stylosa has a brilliant understanding of the inner workings and problems with match making, he clearly ignoring the bigger issue. Adding a role select option only adds more time for players to be waiting for a match instead of playing, and that isn’t something Blizzard wants. Think about how long the current average wait time can be for a match among most levels of Overwatch (which is about 1 to 3 minutes). You would most likely be adding another 2 minutes to the queue by implementing a role select. So in summary by implementing a role select option we would in turn be adding another factor for the match making system to consider when finding a fair and competitive game. This won’t be easy for any specific algorithm to accomplish, which means even longer queue times for match making.

<p>Lead game director of Overwatch Jeff Kaplan has made specific statements in regards to the average wait time in matching making queues.  One of these statements about match making specifically comes from a Battle.net forum post  where Jeff says:

“The first factor is time. The match maker will try to find you a match quickly and not force you to wait too long. A very common thing that happens is that a player will become dissatisfied with a match and say “I don’t care how long you make me wait. I’d rather wait 20 minutes and have a good match than get matchmade into a match like you just put me into.” What we’ve seen is that when the time crosses a certain threshold, players begin to complain about it taking too long to find a match. It sounds good… waiting for that perfect match. But when the reality of waiting too long comes down on most people, the end up vocalizing their discontent on the forums. Also, there is an unrealistic expectation that if a player waits longer for a match, the “better” the match will be. The concept of “better” when it comes to matchmaking is really a hard one to define.”
There are also those who believe that match making in competitive should be separated into group stages. This means they would have separate competitive modes and ranks for different group sizes. So depending on your group size you could have multiple separate competitive rank modes one for solo queue, three person teams, and another for a six stack (full party) queue, which is fantastic idea on paper. This can provide a more team oriented strategy and can decrease the number chaotic and unorganized team structured matches.

So why doesn’t Blizzard takes this into consideration? In truth this might require the whole match making system to be rewritten or might just be too complicated to implement by coding standards. Adding another layer to the system might be too complicated for they system to differentiate the MMR for solo matches and then another for large group matches. While some of you might think that I am over analyzing the MMR system, and its complexity, but the truth is I am not. Lead game director of Overwatch Jeff Kaplan has been very vocal with the community about the match making system. He has explained on numerous occasions how complicated and detailed the MMR system really is. In a post on the Battlen.net forums Jeff explains the MMR system by saying: “The goal of matchmaking is to make it so that you as a player do not have to find 11 other people to play with. You can click a Play button, and the system finds other players for you. That’s the basics. The reality is, the matchmaker is extremely complex in what it is trying to do. It does way more than I am going to mention in this post so while I am going to offer some information here, I am leaving some things out (not all intentionally – it’s just a really complex system).” So it's clearly telling us there is more to the system then what is on the surface and it would just take too long to explain every small little detail without being meet with some criticism. We should take the time to appreciate Jeff for the transpierce he is willing to share with us in regards to match making. He could tell us nothing and just ignore the community but instead takes time to provide quality information to help us all understand there system better.

Conclusion

I have no doubt that the implementation of a “role select” would improve match making as a whole but we have yet to consider what Blizzard’s goal for Overwatch competitive might be. Is Blizzards goal to provide quick and easy access for players? Or is it to provide its players with a truly competitive environment for their competitive game mode? We will probably never know the real answer but in short I don’t see any changes coming to match making any time soon. That stinks on a lot of levels for those of us who really love the game and want to climb the competitive latter. However we need to be thankful for what we do have in Overwatch. Focusing on only the competitive mode of Overwatch takes away from the games overall greatness. It’s a truly amazing game that allows players to experience many different characters and playstyles in a FPS format. Characters come alive with vibrant personalities, and their abilities and play styles reflect them beautifully. Gamers should take some time away from competitive and play modes that are provided in other sections of the game so they can truly enjoy themselves. Appreciate this game for what it is and try to focus less on what the competitive community perceives as what is “broken” with Overwatch. Games are meant to be enjoyed so enjoy them in any way you can.