Recently Jeff Kaplan, the game director for Overwatch was featured in a development update video. The latest video elaborates on several details with some upcoming adjustments and general features for the game’s upcoming new mode, Competitive Play.
During the update video, Kaplan revealed specific details on what changes will be featured Competitive Play with more information set to be released as the launch date draws near. In this recent video however, Kaplan explains how the majority of changes are based on feedback from Competitive Play beta, which you can check out below:
- Seasons are seeing one of the most significant overhauls with season lengths changing from one month to approximately three months, coinciding with the actual seasons of the northern hemisphere(summer, fall, etc.). There will be a small period of a couple weeks between each season for players to break and reset before the next season starts up again.
- Modes and rules will be tweaked across the board, with Kaplan particularly mentioning that the Overtime function will be adjusted as the studio believes it occurs too often. Maps that support the Assault Mode, such as Hanamura, are also being redesigned to accommodate matches that last longer with more of a back-and-forth between teams.
- As the primary attraction of Competitive Play, the ranking system is being completely reworked from what it was in the beta. There are no longer skill tiers displaying player skill. Instead, successful matches boost player’s skill rating with ranks from 1 to 100. Matches will show the skill rating of each individual player as well as a team average, and also include information that reveals which players on each team are partied up. Doing poorly with a low skill rating isn’t as much of a risk, but the higher a player’s rating gets, the more losses will cost them.
- Rewards are an important incentive for any competition, but Kaplan claims the developers are being careful not to unbalance the gameplay in any way. To this end, rewards will be entirely cosmetic with exclusive icons, sprays, and even golden weapons on offer to show off a player’s competitive prowess.
As of right now, Blizzard as yet to announce the release date for the new mode. However, Kaplan has stated that the developers are expecting the mode to go live at the end of the month.
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