Unranked

Unranked icon featuring Tracer

Unranked is one of the playlists available in Overwatch. It is the first mode players can play and you need to win 20 games on this game mode to play Competitive Play. At the start of each game, players will have to vote for a map to play on out of three randomly selected maps from the six standard game modes - Control, Escort, Hybrid, Push, Flashpoint and Clash.

Description

Jump into a game against other players of your skill level.

Quick Play

Quick Play is the standard way of playing Overwatch.

Role Queue

Choose a role before you play.

Game Rules:

• Players: 5V5
• Victory: Complete standard map objectives
• Teams consist of exactly 1 Tank, 2 Damage and 2 Support Heroes.
  • Select between Tank, Damage, Support roles before queuing. Any combination of roles may be selected. The player will be assigned to the first suitable match as one of the roles they selected.
  • During the match, heroes that do not belong to your assigned role are locked.

6v6 Open Queue

Play any role, maximum 2 tanks.

Game Rules

• Players: 6V6
• Victory: Complete standard map objectives
• Teams may have any amount of Damage or Support heroes, but are limited to a maximum of 2 Tank heroes

6v6 hero changes

Following table lists the balance changes made to heroes in the 6v6 modes.

List of 6v6 changes

Hero	Health changes	Armor changes	Shield changes	Ability changes
Ana				Sleep Dart No longer has reduced duration versus Tank heroes. Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds.
D.Va	Increased from 175 to 250.	Reduced from 325 to 300.		Fusion Cannons Weapon spread increased from 3.375 to 4 degrees. Defense Matrix Maximum duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds. Recharge rate reduced by 15%. Micro Missiles Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.
Domina			Reduced from 400 to 375.	Barrier Array Cooldown increased from 14 to 17 seconds.
Doomfist	Increased from 375 to 425.			The Best Defense... Overhealth gained per target reduced from 40 to 25 HP. Maximum temporary health reduced from 200 to 150 health. Seismic Slam Cooldown increased from 6.5 to 7.5 seconds. Power Block Maximum duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 seconds. Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds. Amount of damage to gain Empowered Punch increased from 100 to 120.
Echo				Duplicate No longer has a max health for copied target.
Hazard				Jagged Wall Cooldown increased from 12 to 15 seconds
Junker Queen	Increased from 375 to 450.			Adrenaline Rush Self-healing from wounds damage scalar reduced from 2.5x to 1.75x. Commanding Shout Cooldown increased from 12 to 15 seconds.
Juno				Pulsar Torpedoes Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
Lúcio				Crossfade Healing reduced from 20 to 18.
Mauga	Increased from 425 to 450.	Reduced from 150 to 100.		Overrun Cooldown increased from 5 to 7 seconds.
Mizuki				Remedy Aura Minimum Healing Reduced from 5 to 4.5. Maximum Healing reduced from 20 to 18.
Orisa	Increased from 150 to 250.	Reduced from 300 to 250.		Energy Javelin Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds. Fortify No longer immune to critical damage. Protective Barrier Cooldown increased from 8 to 10 seconds
Ramattra	Increased from 275 to 350.			Void Barrier Cooldown increased from 12 to 16 seconds. Nemesis Form Bonus armor reduced from 275 to 225.
Reinhardt	Increased from 250 to 325.	Reduced from 300 to 225.		Barrier Field Shield health increased from 1500 to 1800. Charge Cooldown increased from 7 to 10 seconds. Fire Strike Cooldown increased from 6 to 8 seconds.
Roadhog	Increased from 600 to 650.			Chain Hook Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds. Take a Breather Maximum duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
Role passives				Role: Tank No longer grants increased base health. Ultimate charge generation reduction reduced from 40% to 20%.
Sigma			Reduced from 275 to 250.	Experimental Barrier Maximum health reduced from 650 to 600.
Winston	Increased from 275 to 325.	Reduced from 200 to 200.		Barrier Projector Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds. Primal Rage Maximum health gain reduced from 700 to 500.
Wrecking Ball	Increased from 300 to 450.	Reduced from 125 to 100.	Reduced from 150 to 0.	Adaptive Shield Radius reduced from 13 to 10 meters. Overhealth gained per target reduced from 100 to 50. Piledriver Cooldown increased from 8 to 10 seconds.
Zarya	Increased from 175 to 225.			Particle Barrier No longer shares a cooldown with Projected Barrier. Health reduced from 225 to 200. Duration reduced from 2.25 to 2 seconds. Cooldown reduced from 11 to 10 seconds. Projected Barrier No longer shares a cooldown with Particle Barrier. Health reduced from 225 to 200. Duration reduced from 2.25 to 2 seconds. Cooldown reduced from 9 to 8 seconds.
Zenyatta				Orb of Discord Damage amplification reduced from 30% to 25%.

Mystery Heroes

Defeat the enemy team with every player using heroes that randomly change upon respawn.

In Mystery Heroes, the player is assigned a random hero (and random perks) every time they are eliminated by another player or player intervention. Mystery Heroes is played as 6v6 on a randomly selected map from one of the five standard game modes - Control, Escort, Hybrid, Push, and Flashpoint.

Game Rules:

• Players: 6V6
• Map: Random (map vote)
• Allows locked heroes
• Victory: Complete standard map objectives

Scoring

• On Escort and Hybrid maps, the attacking team wins if the payload reaches its final destination. If not, the defending team wins.
• On Push maps, the team that has pushed the TS-1 robot farthest on the opponents side of the map after 8 minutes wins. If a team pushes the robot all the way to the end, they will win immediately.
• On Control maps, the team that reaches 100% capture progress on the control point wins the round. Matches are scored as a best-of-three rounds.
• On Flashpoint maps, the team that scores 3 objectives in one game wins.
• On Clash maps, the team that scores 5 objective points in one game wins.
• In Mystery Heroes, you have the standard map objectives (seen above) but players respawn every time they are eliminated (by a player or with player intervention) as random Heroes.

Matchmaking

Main article: Matchmaking

Players are matched based on several factors, including but not limited to:

• Skill: The matchmaking system will, first and foremost, try to group players with and against players of similar skill. The game represents "skill" as a hidden Matchmaking Rating, or MMR, which is determined by a player's performance in Quick Play.
• Time: The matchmaking system will try to find a match within a certain time period so the player doesn't have to wait for too long.
• Ping: Players with servers close to one another are prioritized, to minimize lag and improve the gaming experience.
• Group size: The matchmaking system will attempt to find groups of equal sizes to match against each other. If four players are looking for a game together, the matchmaker will try to put them against another pre-made group of four.
• Account level: The matchmaking system will attempt to group players together based on overall team level and match players with similar account levels against players of similar levels. If too many low level accounts are in queue at one time it will attempt to match low lvl players against other low level players regardless of MMR.
• Avoid priority: The matchmaking system will try not to include avoided players. However, they may be released from the list if the queue times get too long.

Backfill

If one of the players in a team leaves a match in Unranked game modes, they will be "backfilled", meaning that they will be replaced by a new player from the matchmaking queue or by a spectator. The player who was selected to backfill will receive "high priority" matchmaking after the match. Players with high priority will be put in a match faster and cannot be selected to backfill another game, while queuing for the same game mode. (Role queue and open queue are considered separate, but each role in role queue the same.) If the player exits to desktop or plays another game mode, their high priority will be lost.

Spectating

If you join someone already in an unranked mode, you will be able to spectate that game. As soon as someone leaves on the team of the person who you joined, you get to join the game. You can only spectate people on the team of the person you joined.

Leaver penalties

As Unranked modes are intended for a more casual experience and leavers can be backfilled, players are given some leniency when it comes to leaving matches. However, this can still be very disrupting and can lead to unsatisfactory experiences, so players who excessively leave Unranked matches, will be temporarily suspended from queueing to any game mode that grants Player Progression.

Each player's last 20 matches they participated in are recorded. If the player has been marked as leaver in at least 4 of these matches, they will receive a 20 minute suspension from matchmaking. If the player has left at least 6 of their last 20 matches, the duration of the suspension is increased to 4 hours. These suspensions will be reapplied every time the player leaves a match while above these thresholds, but not when the player completes a match. If you are currently in leaver status, your player card will tell you how many games you must finish to leave that status in the upper-right corner.