It had been about 3 month since the first season of Overwatch was released. Ranked Overwatch seems to be a wake-up call to its player by showing that Overwatch itself is yet another First Person Shooter.
Every shooter should have some sort of ranked plays to make the players feel a little bit motivated. For Overwatch, however, players become hard-press gamer gunning for a ranked win to a point where toxicity swarms the community. Many players who came to this game hoping for a more friendly and laid-back shooter experience soon find their hope dashed.
It is sad to see stressful players deteriorate into infuriated masses throwing insults to one-another but it seems almost understandable since the competitive experience has been devastating for them, especially for those who solo-queue.
After the end of season 1 competitive Overwatch, many players hoped that blizzard will make ranked Overwatch more enjoyable, but once season 2 Overwatch was released, they found that nothing major has been changed.
Just why does ranked Overwatch receive many negative reviews? Toxicity is definitely one of the key issues concerning ranked plays, but it is not the root of the problem.
Ever had the feeling of "I did not deserve that" or "the team has let me down"? That is what you will experience in EVERY single ranked Overwatch game.
First of all, there are problems with team compositions. In season one, there are many occasions of 2 players (sometimes even 3) choosing the same character and refuse to switch to another character for a better team composition. Not only does this mostly cost an automatic lose, it also jeopardize other player's game experience by forcing them to play roles they may not be familiar with even if those players might be better at the character the other 2 or 3 players are "hogging". Season 2 emplaced a basic fix to this issue by not allowing duo-characters in a ranked game, but the fundamental issue is left unsolved since players just simply go 4 or 5 offense character and leave the rest of the team unsatisfied with the role they are forced to choose.
Second of all, ranked Overwatch does not reward a player for their own gaming ability. A well-dedicated team can loose just because of one goof-ball teammate fooling around. Skilled players can go on a losing streak just because of their team. There is no salvation from this issue since it is very unlikely for one or even several skilled gamers to carry one team, unlike CSGO or another popular game, League of Legend.
Ultimately, the team-valued game that Overwatch boast to be seems to be its downfall.
What I do like to compliment Blizzard on is that for a game that seems to have so many opportunity for creating unbalanced characters, Blizzard is able to keep Overwatch characters in check. Also, Blizzard is smart enough to get rid of the sudden-death mode on ranked where losing and winning is basically decided on a coin-toss.
In the end, has ranked Overwatch changed since season 1? The answer is not really. So, it is not recommended to play competitive season 2 Overwatch if you can not stand the first season. But if you just play to have a little bit of fun, season 2 Overwatch can be just a little bit bearable for you.
