Overwatch team hints at new competitive change to improve OW2’s ranked mode

zenyatta in ow2Blizzard Entertainment

The Overwatch 2 developers have hinted at a new change coming to ranked that should greatly improve the quality of matches in competitive.

Overwatch 2 launched to overall good praise by fans and critics, but its ranked mode has proven to be quite an issue still months later.

With weird matchmaking, a controversial system upgrade from the first game and leavers ruining games, players have been left discouraged from hopping into ranked play.

Now, it seems like the devs want to make some changes to really crack down on players who quit or disconnect from ranked matches, especially at the end of the season.

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Overwatch 2 Baptiste runs in New YorkBlizzard Entertainment
More changes could be coming to OW2’s ranked mode.

Overwatch 2 devs want harsher punishments for leavers

During a recent Reddit AMA, the devs were asked numerous questions about a variety of topics from hero balance to competitive modes, and the issue of leavers came up.

When asked what the team was going to do about the influx of leavers ruining matches, Systems Designer Gavin Winter revealed the team wants to do more to combat the problems with players leaving.

“We agree that we can do more to disincentivize leaving games, especially at the end of competitive seasons,” he explained.

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Players have often complained that matches at the end of the season become very frustrating, because of newbs wanting to get matches in before it’s too late or reach a certain ranked milestone.

ow2 ranked changes on redditReddit
Leavers could be facing more punishments in Overwatch 2.

“We’re considering making ranked penalties partially carry over from season to season and we’d like to make sure that leaving games is never optimal for progressing challenges regardless of whether you’re in ranked or unranked.”

The dev didn’t elaborate or indicate when such changes would be happening, but it’s possible that they could be part of a larger upgrade to the ranked experience planned in Season 4.

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