Season 4 of Overwatch‘s Competitive Play is now live. Blizzard’s blog on the topic also covers some of the changes that are being made to the system. Most of these changes deal with those ranked Diamond or above, but a few are important for all Competitive players.
The most important change in Season 4 was also detailed in today’s patch notes, updating the game to patch 1.8. All Assault, Escort, and Assault/Escort hybrid maps will now feature a situational respawn delay for defenders.
If attackers outnumber defenders on a contested point, the defenders’ respawn timer will increase proportionally over time. The reason for this feature’s implementation is to prevent time stalling by trickling in defense players one by one, and hopefully reduce the number of ties. The studio also mentions working on a more “robust” solution for breaking ties on Assault maps.
Players with Skill Level 500 or below will no longer be shown. Blizzard saw that many players were striving to acquire as low of a skill level as possible to matchmake with low-level opponents. The devs hope that by removing this number, it will quell the need for players to continue losing games on purpose.
For high-level Overwatch players there are a few more important changes to note. For Diamond-level players and above (those above a 3000 Skill Rating), decay sets in much faster. Rather than just a single game per week, the quota has been raised to seven in order for players to keep their rank.
For those eyeing Top 500 ranking rewards, Blizzard is taking off the kid gloves. Previously any player who broke into Top 500 during a season would be rewarded Top 500 rewards at the end of the season. However, now, only the Top 500 at the end of a season will get those rewards.
Blizzard’s reasoning is that this will lead to more serious competition for the full duration of a season, as not only will top-ranked players have to play multiple games every week, but also finish the season in the Top 500 to get those prestigious rewards.
