A
lengthy forum post by Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan outlines changes they plan for
competitive mode for
Overwatch based on the current testing of the mode
on the PTR. Jeff discusses their growing understanding of how best to handle
sudden death overtime and other changes they are planning based on feedback from
testers. Some of these will come before the mode goes live (currently planned by
the end of the month) and they also describe other changes that will take longer
to implement. Here's the outlook on the balance between perfecting things and
getting the new mode launched:
The extent of the updates we mentioned
above are non-trivial. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to remove
the coin flip and change the format again in Escort and Hybrid maps, which means
that they’re not something we do can overnight. In fact, they’re not something
we can realistically do until our Fall season. While we think they’re good
changes to make, we don’t feel that holding back Competitive Play until the Fall
is the right thing for the game right now. Instead, our goal is to release
Competitive Play in our next content patch and kick-off our Summer season with
the current ruleset.
There’s a few reasons for this: We want players to be able to work towards
Competitive Play rewards sooner rather than later. We’ve also gotten a ton of
positive feedback from people who are playing and enjoying the system right now
on the PTR. And, perhaps most importantly, we feel like starting the Summer
season will allow us to learn a lot about what works in Competitive Play and
what doesn’t—even more than we have from the PTR. I’ve mentioned previously that
I believe Competitive Play is the type of system that will require a few seasons
before we reach the place where we want to be. We need to run the system through
its paces, in the live game environment, so that we can see how the community as
a whole uses and reacts to it. By getting the system out there sooner, we can
start making meaningful improvements sooner too.
Speaking of improvements, while major changes to Competitive Play likely won’t
be coming for a few months, we’re looking to get the Escort/Hybrid map changes
and draw functionality on the PTR in the near future. Right now, if all goes
well, we think we’ll be able to have those changes ready for testing sometime in
late July.