Overwatch's Game Director Jeff Kaplan released a video on Monday 15th with some information regarding the upcoming changes for season 2. Here's some (most) of the things he talked about.
Skill rating changes
Kaplan talked about how they think people are a bit too focused on the number of their skill rating. “In our system, a person with a 60 skill rating is actually an amazing Overwatch player. If you had 60 skill rating, you were in the top 6% of all Overwatch players. But it didn’t feel that way.” So, instead of having the 1-100 skill rating system, they will change it into a 1-5000 system. This, along with a “tier system”, will hopefully make players look less at their skill rating (which naturally goes up and down while you play) and more on the bigger picture. The tiers they will introduce, will be a “bigger picture” ranking system. There will be 7 different tiers, usually around every 500th skill rating. So for example, if you are between ranks 2000-2499, you are a gold player. You cannot drop down from each tier after you’ve achieved it, except for the two highest tiers. And, at the end of the season, you will earn rewards based on your tier and not your skill rating, like it was in season 1.
They will also add "skill rating decay". This change is something that will affect top ranked players only; ranks grand master, master and diamond. If you don’t play competitive Overwatch for 7 days, you will start to lose 50 skill rating per 24 hours. You cannot, however, go below rank diamond. This change is made so that people will still continue to play (it doesn’t even have to be a lot) after they have achieved their rank.
Coin toss and sudden death is going away!
Control maps like Nepal, will not have any changes. But Assault mode maps like Volskaya and Hanamura will have some. They will keep their current time bank system, but with some small tweaks to the amount of time teams will have to capture/defend. These changes are made after the Overwatch team has monitored the capture times players have reported. Other than that, their time bank system will also be implemented to their hybrid maps like Kings Row, and payload maps like Dorado. The time bank system will make ties very, very rare. But, if a tie does occur, both teams will recieve a (small) currency reward for the time they put in. With this, they will also change the currencies to fit. Your current points will be multiplied by 10, as well as the cost for the golden guns.
Other upcoming changes
They will also change how wildly different skill ratings queue with each other. Currently, they felt as if it might be a bit unfair, if let’s say, a rank 40 queue with a rank 70. Starting with the PTR, they will try and see how it works out, having it work in the way that you need to be within 500 skill rating to play competitive with each other.
Kaplan ended the video by saying that they will make sure that the patch notes for season 2 will be as detailed as possible, and that they want the next season to feel like a new beginning. Also, don’t forget to try out the PTR and give them feedback!
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