In a recently released 'Developer Update' video, Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan walked us through some of the features that will be coming with competitive mode later this month.
Jeff Kaplan, Vice President of Blizzard and Game Director on Overwatch, talked through some major updates that are coming to Overwatch and hinted at a very bright future for the game. In the video, he mentioned new heroes and new maps coming later this year, but the main focus was on the upcoming competitive mode and some of the cool features that would be coming with it. In the beginning of the video he also mentioned that there was a focus on improving the spectate mode for both broadcasting and observing, hopefully improving the viewer experience.
Competitive Play
Blizzard is launching a competitive play update, hopefully towards the end of June that will add a lot of features to the game, revolving mostly around the competitive mode. Competitive mode was available during the beta, but after a lot of feedback the team decided it needed more work. This new and improved competitive mode is for players who want to take the game more seriously.
Some of the biggest feedback on competitive play during the beta was that it actually wasn't competitive enough - players wanted a better understanding of just how skilled they are and how they match up to other players.
Seasons
In the video, Kaplan mentions that some of the biggest feedback on competitive play was the length of seasons. During the beta season length was one month, but many players felt that was too short. In the coming update, seasons will last roughly three months and will be based on the real world seasons. This means that when the system launches it will start in the summer season. There will be a short break in between each season to allow everything to settle and let players reset.
Perfecting Game Modes
Another major point Kaplan made was changes coming to the game modes. While he didn't mention too many specific details, he talked about some of the high-level problems players had with the game. One major issue was that the games were going into sudden death way too often, which took away from the overall affect.
There was also concerns within the community that assault maps, like Hanamura and Volskaya Industries, often flipped too quickly and were very dependent on a single good team fight. He mentioned that the assault format is changed to allow for better games, but said specific details were coming soon.
Ranking System
One of the biggest aspects of the competitive mode was the ranking system, which during the beta was done through a tier system. Many players felt like this was based too much on progression and less on skill, so Blizzard made some major changes to the system. In the new system, the game will take a player's MMR and directly correlate it to what they're calling 'skill rating'. When loading into a game it will show players everyone's skill rating, as well as an average skill rating for each team. In the new system, players in a match on the lower end of the average skill rating will gain more for a win and will lose less for a loss.
Rewards
Kaplan mentioned that rewards are controversial when it comes to competitive play because Blizzard doesn't want to offer anything that gives players an advantage. Therefore, the rewards for competitive play will be purely cosmetic, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. There will be exclusive sprays and players icons that are only available through playing each season. The biggest reward, however, is a new golden gun system. The highest skill players will be unlocking the golden guns way before anyone else and will also have access to other cosmetic rewards that lower skill players won't.
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