[NEWS] Overwatch Developer Update – Season 2 Changes

Overwatch Game Director, Jeff Kaplan talks to the community once again on what the upcoming changes are going to be for the 2nd season of competitive play. Ever since Overwatch was released a few months ago, Blizzard continues to gain my respect with every developer update they upload. They do something that a lot of game developers don’t do and that’s keeping the community involved with their development.

Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the main points mentioned in the video, but I highly recommend watching the video for a more detailed explanation.

 SKILL RATING:

  • Season 2 will now be based on a 1-5000th rating scale.
  • 7 new tiers. He didn’t mention all of them, but he did mention 6 of the 7 – Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, Master & Grand Master. To be in the “Gold” tier you would need a skill rating of 2000-2499.
  • When in the Bronze, Silver & Gold tier, you won’t drop down in tier. Meaning if you’re in the “Gold” tier and you do terrible in competitive play, you won’t drop to the  Silver or Bronze tier. You only drop in tier if you’re in the Master or Grand Master tier.
  • End season rewards will now depend on tier.

COMPETITIVE CHANGE:

  • Sudden Death will now change into a tie, where some competitive points will be rewarded. Jeff, does also state that ties should be very rare to happen.
  • More aggressive capture times – New time bank system (I advise to watch the video at 5:40 minutes for a better explanation).

SKILL RATING DECAY:

  • Effects only the top three tiers – Diamond, Master & Grand Master.
  • Lose 50 points a day after being inactive in competitive play for 7 consecutive days.
  • The lowest Master & Grand Master can drop is Diamond – meaning if you’re in the Master tier, you won’t drop all the way down to Gold or Silver. If you’re in the Diamond tier and “Skill Rating Decay” sets in, you will just go back to the baseline of the Diamond tier.
  • The top 500 players must have at least 50 matches played.

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