Overwatch’s developers, Blizzard, put out a developer update video detailing all of the new features that would be coming with the second season of their competitive mode. In the 15-minute video, game director Jeff Kaplan discusses what worked with Season 1, and what has been altered or removed in order to make the game a much more enjoyable experience.
First of all, let’s rejoice at the fact that they’ve gone ahead and taken out the controversial coin-toss mechanic that came at the end of a tied game in competitive mode. It effectively randomised who would win the game, and made it feel like all of your hard work was for nothing more than a random chance at victory. In the video, Jeff Kaplan even states that, “we (Blizzard) don’t like the coin-toss either, the coin-toss is going away…in fact, all of sudden death is going away.”
For me, the best announcement in the video comes in the form of an update to the skill rating system that currently exists within the game. At this point in time, you’re ranked on a 1-100 scale based upon 10 trial games before you jump into things, and this ranking can go up or down, depending on whether you win or lose a game. However, because there’s only 100 increments, you’ll often only move a fraction of a number each time, and it can feel like a real uphill battle to rise the ranks and prove that you’re worth your salt in-game.
Now, in a move that’s frankly genius, the skill rankings can vary between 1-5,000. What this means is that you’ll feel like you’ve made genuine progress each game, and can constantly tell where you are in relation to other players. Most crucially, however, is the implementation of seven brackets within these 5,000 places; each of which is named things like “gold”, “silver,” and “bronze”. This is explained by saying that if a player is ranked between 2,000-2,499, then they fall under the “gold” bracket. However, what’s most interesting is that if they fall below the 2,000 threshold, their position as a “gold player” will still remain. This sounds like it’s to promote progress rather than punish failure, and honestly I think that it’s a really neat idea.
At the higher brackets of play (I’m guessing around the 4,000 mark), players will suffer from something called “skill rating decay”. This means that if they don’t play competitive Overwatch for 7 days, they will proceed to lose 50 rankings every 24 hours. This is to encourage the top players to maintain their position, and again sounds like a genuinely smart idea.
Even if you don’t play Overwatch, it’s hard not to praise Blizzard for everything they’ve done when it comes to communicating with the playerbase. If the recent problems around Hello Games and No Man’s Sky on PC have shown us anything, it’s that a lack of information from a developer can seriously tarnish not only their reputation, but also the perception of any future titles or expansions they might release.
The developer update itself contains more information, so if you’re interested, then give it a watch below:
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