Overwatch is a huge success for Blizzard so far, which have announced that over 10 million players are playing the game currently. And so the questions of what’s the next update will entail has now been lingering among the players. Game director Jeff Kaplan is pretty upfront in this situation, dishing out details directly to the forums on what to expect next- on new heroes, maps, and other cool features like a server-browser, a public test realm and expanding custom game options, as well as other smaller quality of life options. You can read the latest of his frank response from the forums over at Battle.net here.
In line with that, Blizzard also just release a developer update video reiterating some of these points, but most importantly focuses on the major thing being worked right now: competitive mode. Kaplan explained that the version implemented in the beta is more prone towards progression rather than skill-based, where players can grind to reach a certain tier or rank despite racking up losses along the way.
While an earlier interview suggested that the safety net is off and players can rise and fall through the tiers, it seems from the developer update video that tiers are all gone. Its replacement? A skill ranking, range from 1-100, that correlates directly to the players’ MMR (match-making rating), the system currently in place to match players for balanced play in the current default mode, quick play.
Kaplan added that it will also transparently show each player’s skill rank and an average team rank in competitive play, to get a feel of how skillful or balanced the match is. Though in unbalanced matches where there is a clear difference between the two teams, the underdog team is expected to gain more from a win and lose less from a loss, and otherwise for the stronger team. Information of how the players in the team is partied will also be made available, so you can see if the team is entirely made up of solo-queue players, a pre-made group, or a little mix of both.
Lastly, cosmetic rewards are promised for those in the highest skill level, with golden guns being spoken. Improvements to the match format are also explained a bit, like how sudden death will be settled in the same map instead of going to a random control map, and specific improvements on assault maps (as of right now: Temple Of Anubis, Volskaya Industries, and Hanamura) for a better experience will be detailed later.
Here’s the video in full:
Looks like Blizzard is in the right track with its updates, taking account of fan feedback from the forums and reddit in making such decisions. Hopefully its implementation of competitive mode will be something special for most players to give it a try,