Jeff Kaplan explains why the Rate this Match feature was removed from Overwatch 1.12 PTR

We've all been doing it wrong, apparently.

Since the early Overwatch betas, the game had a feature that allowed players to rate their experience after every match.

This three-star rating system remains in effect to this day, but the most recent PTR patch 1.12 axed it, likely in preparation for its removal from the live game soon.

Blizzard didn't make a fuss about this decision, since it's not more important than many of the other changes in the patch, but players, as always, noticed its absence and took to the forums to look for an explanation.

"We had high hopes for this feature but after a year of the game being live and an extended period in beta, all we learned from the feature was [that] new players used the Rate this Match feature more than existing players," game director Jeff Kaplan said, answering the many questions about the feature's removal.

"[That] players enjoy winning, [and that] players do not enjoy losing," he continued. "We want to reduce as much clutter in the UI as possible and seeing as we were not getting tremendous results from the feature, we decided to remove it."

While Kaplan is probably right, the problem with this feature was that it was never adequately explained in the game. I remember the early days of Overwatch where almost every match had someone asking if we're rating our experience with players in the match, or the quality of the match itself as it pertains to lag and so on.

Maybe this is why the feature hasn't been successful.