The upcoming third season of Overwatch’s Competitive Play mode begins in just over a month. It won’t be the same as what players have come to know, with the most notable changes being made to the off-season and how skill ratings are handled.
Blizzard noted some of the new Season 3 changes, which are currently being tested on the Public Test Realm, in their newest forum post. Scott Mercer, the principal designer highlighted the off season as the most obvious change. There will now be only a week between the end of Season 2 (November 24th) and the start of Season 3 (December 1st).
Mercer mentioned that Blizzard is faced with an interesting dilemma when it comes to skill rating and tiers that are in testing. The company wants each season to “feel like a fresh start”. However, if everyone’s skill rating is reset, the top-tier players end up getting thrown together with the lesser players, which makes for a pretty bad match for everyone involved.
“If we completely reset everyone’s skill rating (SR) at the start of a new season, then players of all skill levels would end up playing against each other and having poor quality matches until the system could reevaluate each player’s skill,” he said.
The company also wants to have a more even spread between the different skill tiers, and actually found its system for season 2 started out too many people in Gold or Platinum. The reason this isn’t too good is because it meant many people would only end up losing skill rating from where they began.
“As a result, we’re testing a different way of determining your starting SR for Season 3 on the PTR,” he explained. “We’re leaning more towards trying to keep things fair rather than giving everyone a fresh start. We’re also going to initially tune your SR to be slightly lower to start. In turn, fewer players should start the season having their skill rating drastically drop despite having close to even wins and losses.”
“This change will mean that some players will not start in the same tier for Season 3 that they were placed in for Season 2, and that your SR gains from winning will be a little higher at the beginning of the season. After you play enough matches, however, your SR gains and losses will go back to normal.”
However, further changes could be made still. Blizzard plans to see how things play out on the PTR, and may end up resetting placement matches during the test.
