Overwatch 2 players have been angry with the unbalanced matches since launch. Here is an explanation on MMR from devs.
Since Overwatch 2 launched, players have been unhappy with the uneven matchmaking, which often had players in wildly different ranks playing in the same competitive game. Now, developers have decided to share some insight into the matchmaking system.
Blizzard put up a new blog post on Overwatch 2's matchmaking system, stating: "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."
How MMR works in Overwatch 2
According to developers, every player has an internal matchmaking rating that is used to describe their skill relative to other players. MMR isn't an absolute value, however, meaning that it can change even if your personal skill stays the same. This means that the general population may be getting better or worse compared to you.
As you improve your skills in Overwatch 2, your MMR will rise. Of course, winning more games against players at your current MMR level means a rise in your MMR. When your rank is lowered at the beginning o fa season, your MMR won't be impacted.
When it comes to matchmaking, developers claim that only MMR is used when forming a match. This means that sometimes someone's rank isn't the same as their MMR.
How matchmaking works in Overwatch 2
So how do teams end up with people in anywhere from Gold to Diamond? According to developers, this may be due to people of different skill levels being in the same party. When a party joins a match, there's a possibility that the team will have a "larger skill difference" than usual. Developers also added that players at higher levels will see a variety in skill level as well since there are fewer players "at the very top of the MMR curve."
Blizzard devs acknowledged that these matches can feel imbalanced and unfair. Even if the teams have similarly varied players, the role they play may impact the match anyway. For example, if the tank on one team is much higher in rank than the other, the match won't feel evenly matched in most cases.
Luckily, there may be some changes on the way.
"We’ve got changes coming to the game over the next few months which will dramatically reduce these disparities," developers wrote. "We’ll try to find pairs of similarly rated players in each role when making a match. For support and damage roles, which have two slots, each player will be paired with one player on the opposite team. There will still sometimes be matches with a large range of differently skilled players, but in these cases, the two teams will be more like mirror images of each other."