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Blizzard Has Overwatch Development Changes In Pipeline

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Blizzard’s has big plans for Overwatches new competitive season with a huge developer update in the pipeline.

Developer Update | Upcoming Season 6 Changes | Overwatch

Season six for Blizzards Overwatch will be new experience with the competitive season, this time only lasting two months instead of three. Jeff Kaplan from Blizzard explains that even though the new season will be a shorter players should be receiving “roughly” the same amount of competitive points as before.

Here is the patch notes for what is to be changed/added:

  • Changes to skill rating decay. In order to avoid decay, you’ll only need to play five matches per week at Diamond and above. Also, if you do suffer decay, you’ll only lose 25 SR instead of 50.
  • Control maps are changing. “We’ve noticed that an inordinate number of these matches are going into overtime… this is resulting in very long match times,” said Kaplan. To solve this problem, control maps will be best out of three from now on. Due to the lower time investment, Kaplan thinks this will also make losing a control map “sting less.”
  • Placement matches will work differently. In seasons four and five, Blizzard experimented with placing people lower than where their SR should’ve been so they could climb more. This, however, left a lot of people feeling bummed out. “It felt wrong deflating you on purpose just so you would have a sense of progression later.” Placements in season six, then, will more accurately reflect your actual skill level right off the bat.
  • Higher tiered matches should now be more balanced. Players won’t be put in as many matches where they stomp the other team and barely gain any SR, but queues might take longer. “Hopefully it’s not super noticeable for most of us… despite the fact that you might have to wait for a long time,” said Kaplan. If times are out of control, however, Blizzard will change it.

That’s Blizzards plans for the upcoming season but what is also good is that Jeff also mentioned that seasons seven and eight are already getting some pre-planned love.

“The competitive play mode is an ongoing process,. We will never just let it stagnate. We will always keep trying changes and trying to make it better.”

Source: Kotaku