Overwatch 2 Developer Discusses New Matchmaking System to Prevent Win or Loss Streaks

With the recent mid-season update/patch for Overwatch 2, the game saw many changes, including the new Porsche crossover and significant technical adjustments like the tank rework designed to balance the frontlines. Another notable change is the matchmaking update, which has had a major impact on the game and received positive feedback.

Initially, the details of these matchmaking changes were somewhat vague. However, one of the developers has now provided more insight into what the team at Blizzard aimed to achieve with this update. Let's delve into the specifics shared by the developer and understand what it means for matchmaking as we near the end of Season 10 and prepare for Season 11 of Overwatch 2.

Overwatch 2 Developer Talks New Matchmaking to Prevent Win/Loss Streaks

The aptly named "loser's queue" in Overwatch 2 has been a persistent issue for many players, leading to consecutive losing matches. Aware of this problem, the developers addressed it with a new matchmaking approach in the recent mid-season 10 update, as detailed in the latest patch notes.

Hello again. I wanted to give a little more detail on the recent loss streak prevention system in the 2.10.1 patch of Overwatch!

— Morgan Maddren (@SrslyPaladin) May 16, 2024

Overwatch 2 Server Engineer Morgan Maddren elaborated on this new approach on X. He explained that while most OW2 matches appear balanced to the matchmaker, some games still heavily favor one team. Previously, the matchmaker did not account for streaks, resulting in players who had just lost several games being placed in highly unfavorable matches that would just continue their losing streak.

Maddren stated, “This just felt like a bad match for us to be making. It seems less likely to be a fun match. So all this change is doing is telling the matchmaker to stop making those matches, just avoiding this case we think is bad.” He clarified that the developers' focus was on balancing, not simply eliminating the "loser's queue."

“Loss streaks aren’t very fun, but they’re a fact of life in a competitive game. The matchmaker is not artificially preventing loss streaks. We just don’t need to be randomly making loss streaks longer.” Based on these comments, it seems clear that the developers aim to balance the game by reducing the impact of losing streaks, rather than artificially increasing winning streaks.

Regular Overwatch 2 players are pleased with this news, especially casual players who don’t want to endure long losing streaks before finally getting a win. Hopefully, this matchmaking adjustment will bring more balance to the game, allowing all players, regardless of skill, to experience a healthier mix of wins and losses in Overwatch 2.