Overwatch’s second season of competitive play has begun. Players can now start playing their second set of matches to see where they rank for Season 2. The new map, Eichenwalde, will also be added to the game.
One of the biggest changes to Overwatch this season is the removal of Sudden Death. These games instead will now end without a win or a loss. However, Blizzard has worked on making some changes to reduce the chance of a tie occurring.
However, principal designed Scott Mercer wants to make sure players don’t feel cheated out of any loot if their game ends in a tie.
“We definitely want players to feel like if they had a tie, their time wasn’t completely wasted.” Mercer said back in July. “So we’re trying to find the sweet spot of a lot of players feel like, ‘Oh, well, we got something out of it,’ but at the same time not create situations where players might collude and create some nasty situations there. We’re still discussing that.”
Blizzaed also introduced skill tiers, which it hopes will do a more efficient job of communicating players’ skill levels. Skill tiers will be displayed throughout the game, and the skill rating system has been changed from 1-100 to a 1-5000 scale. This will give players a great amount of detail about their skill.
Other changes include adjustments to leaver penalties, the Top 500 system, and the competitive point system. A new patch also launched today that introduces the new Reinhardt skins and Eichenwalde.
The patch also changes hero and map balance updates, user interface adjustments, and bug fixes. McCree is one of the heroes affected, whose Dead Eye Ultimate now drains over a .25-second period instead of showing a 50% reduction when activated and 0% when used.
