Disclaimer: this article represents the opinion of the writer and not necessarily that of Team Dignitas.

I’m going to be honest with you here, after doing my placement matches and seeing my ranking I felt as depressed as I did going 0-2 at my first ever Yu-Gi-Oh! Tournament as a kid. And it seems I’m not the only one, there are hundreds of videos and screenshots emerging of people upset with their placements. There are players who won 8, 9 or even all of their placements and still getting extremely low ranking like 1500, on the contrary to this there pro players like iddqd who still ended up in grandmaster after only winning 2 games and drawing twice.

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Before everyone starts complaining let’s look at the facts. Scott mercer the principal designer at Blizzard Entertainment posted all the notes regarding the Competitive changes on October 25th. The main thing mentioned was the Season 2 problem, people need to understand that way too many players were actually placed too high in the beginning of season 2. ‘When Season 2 started, we had WAY more players in Gold and Platinum than we initially intended, and way fewer in Bronze and Silver. This was the result of how we calculated your initial SR for Season 2. We tried to partially reset player SR at the start of Season 2, but the results were not as we expected. Instead, below-average players started Season 2 at a higher SR than they should have been given their performance in Season 1.’ This means that if you were playing at a gold level in Season 2, going 10-0 in placements won’t put you straight into diamond or higher. You should still be placed in a Gold level. This is because your Season 2 rank has a tremendous effect on determining your Season 3 rank. What he continues to say is that Season 2 was overly fluctuated with Gold and Platinum players, a lot more than they initially intended. This left a very few amount of people in Bronze and Silver.

Why is this happening? Well he admits that they tried to partially reset player SR (Skill Rating) at the start of Season 2. This led to below-average players starting with a higher SR than they should have received given their performance in the previous season. Basically people who did well in placements could get a really high rank, maybe more than they deserve. This led to the huge fluctuation in Gold and Platinum players, with 7 different ranks to be in and most the player base being in these 2, something had to be changed. This is why they are giving the rating system an overhaul. Many didn’t deserve those ranks. Because of this, competition within those ranks was extremely varied rather than consisting of people who belong at that rank. The majority of people are complaining about their ranks being around 100-300 SR lower than their end of Season 2 rank, but that is Blizzards intention.

In Season 2 a player that was in Diamond was not near as good as someone in Masters but they were only 1 rank apart. Whereas Gold and Platinum players had a much smaller skill gap. To combat this the general consensus is that Blizzard picked a point around low Diamond (don’t quote me on this I don’t know exactly where it is) and if you are above it you will go up in points from your Season 2 end, but of course if you are below it you will go down. They are just spreading all the ranks out this season rather than letting people overpopulate rankings maybe a bit too high for them. Before you even start your placements Blizzard basically has an idea for where they want to place you, if you were above the Diamond threshold then your wins will weigh more than loses in your placement games.

The further you are away from this such as iddqd a professional who was an extremely high rank last season, won only 2 games but they were so heavily weighted compared to loses he got placed at over 4400. If you are slightly above it your wins will weigh slightly more than loses, if below the threshold than your wins will weigh slightly lower. Because of this if you do go 5-5 or worse than you will certainly not get placed at your previous rank last season if you are in the threshold of platinum, gold or lower players. This is why people are going 8-2 or higher and still getting their same placement as last season, since wins aren’t weighted as high as loses it will be harder to get high placement initially. There will be anomalies of course but in theory this is how it will be, of course we don't know this all for certain.

Now this all may sound extremely technical and complex but this is how it is. There had to be drastic change otherwise it would be the same madness of Season 2. Of course people are upset because they feel Blizzard are telling them they are worse than they thought they were. Please remember placements are just 10 games out of the season, there are so many you can play after those 10 games. Have fun, it’s still a game don’t feel bad you may have placed lower than last season because most people did too and that’s okay. Blizzard aren’t telling you that you’re bad, they are telling you ‘here are the people your skill level, play with them so you can have fun playing against evenly matched players, improve and work your way to the top from here.’ Your rank may upset you now but it’s much better than being placed too high and being put with people way out of your skill level or vice-versa.

If you want to improve on your Overwatch skills, you’re already at the right place. Also everyone feel free to tweet me @DanteDemonZ your Season 2 final rank vs your Season 3 placement rank and how you did in placements, I’d very much to see how everyone is affected.

See you in the competitive climb.