One of the worst parts of Overwatch is having to be paired up with bad teammates. Fans have long questioned how the shooter’s matchmaking and some fans have uncovered the alleged truth.
Fans of Overwatch believe that the game matches them up with people of the same skill level as them. However, one fan discovered a patent that could’ve potentially affected matchmaking in the game, and the community wasn’t happy about it.
Game gathers data says patent
According to the patent, the game gathers various data through the game’s comms system. This includes the voice chat. Other collected data had chats, and even rage quit instances. What makes the patent worrying is that it also allegedly puts players in teams that can potentially benefit them.
welp, i've finally gone off the deep end. i just discovered a matchmaking patent from Activision/Blizz that states that they retain small pieces of data (i.e. voicechat use, chat use, ragequitting) in conjunction with actual performance to put you in games with even chances
— crackpot investigative journalist (@PrototypeOW) September 21, 2020
Instead of putting players in teams where they are on the same level as the players, the game instead puts players in teams that evens their chances of winning. Simply put, players who perform poorly will be placed in a team that performs much better than them.
This didn’t sit well with the community simply because it explains why they get paired up with lower-skilled players. However, Jeff Kaplan has stepped up to finally speak about the issue.
Jeff Kaplan speaks
In a Reddit thread, Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan opens up about the allegations to the game. As per the developer, Overwatch does not use the alleged patent. He adds that MMR in the game is based merely on win/loss ratios. This means that players are most likely to be paired with players on the same level as them.
Beyond the win/loss ratio, the game also bases the player’s ping and region for MMR. However, Kaplan didn’t explain why the patent was discovered in the first place, and this is what players wanted to know.
In the response, Jeff notes that what he explained about MMR is oversimplified, but that was how it basically works. Players have a lot of other questions to which the developer is yet to respond. For now, more players are looking into the matter.
The Overwatch community is currently in disbelief about the discovered patent. For now, players are trying to completely understand if the patent is indeed in place in the game. Blizzard has long fought toxicity in the game, but such a system promotes that. Blizzard should at least offer more explanations about the matter.
Image used courtesy of Overwatch/YouTube
