Season 4 Competitive Changes

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

Over the last 12 weeks, we've been listening to your feedback and working behind the scenes to make the next season of Competitive Play even better. So before you dive into your placement matches, let’s talk about some of the changes coming to Season 4.

Skill Rating Changes

Back in Season 2, we introduced a skill rating decay system, which required players in the Diamond, Master, and Grandmaster tiers to complete at least one competitive match every seven days in order to maintain their status. This season, players with a skill rating above 3000 will need to complete at least seven games per week—a change that will improve the accuracy of the player’s skill rating, make maintaining multiple high-level accounts more difficult, and make upper-tier placement more meaningful.

When you complete a match, the amount of time until skill rating decay occurs is pushed back by 24 hours, and you can bank up to seven days per week. That means as long as you manage to play seven games over a one-week period, your skill rating will be safe. You could play one match per day or complete all seven in a single session. It’s up to you.

Last season, we retooled the skill rating and placement match mechanics to more accurately place players into an appropriate tier. Overall, we’re extremely happy with these changes, but we've noticed a few issues at the extreme ends of the skill rating spectrum.

Some players, for instance, have been deliberately throwing matches in an effort to reach the lowest attainable skill rating. We obviously don't want to incentivize this behavior—because Competitive Play works best when everybody is trying—so we're making it a little more difficult to hit the lowest and highest possible ratings: 0 and 5000. We're also no longer displaying skill rating values that are lower than 500. This change will have no effect for players who have a skill rating between 500 and 4500.

Top 500 Changes

We're also making some changes to the Top 500 leaderboard. Previously, any player who managed to break into the top 500 at any point throughout the season would receive a special spray and player icon at the end of the season. This meant that many players no longer had an incentive to maintain their status as the season progressed, which could result in less competitive matches toward the end of the season.

Starting today, these rewards will only be granted if the player is in the top 500 leaderboard at the end of the season. This will make the end-of-season leaderboard rankings much more competitive as players fight to reach the top 500

Respawn Changes

Until now, stalling an attack by repeatedly throwing yourself at the point has been a common defensive strategy on Assault, Escort, and Assault/Escort maps—even when the attackers have a decisive advantage. Typically, this tactic doesn’t change the outcome of battle; it simply delays the attackers’ progress. 

This season, we’ve implemented a respawn time delay that’s activated when the attackers outnumber the defenders on a contested point. If the point hasn’t been captured and the defense hasn’t regained the advantage after a specified time, the defender respawn timer will slowly begin to increase until it hits a maximum value. If the defense manages to gain the upper hand, the timer resets to zero.

We hope this change will improve the attackers’ ability to capture the point (when they have the advantage), encourage defenders to group up and retake the objective, and reduce the number of ties. However, we are currently working on a more robust solution for breaking ties on Assault maps.

[tronic44 3,642]

Interested to see how the spawn delays will work, that means you could move off a point and give it to the defenders so your team can respawn quicker. Could help save a game if there's a small amount of time remaining.

I imagine the other changes are nice changes for those 3000+, which I'm hoping to find out this season. Road to plat!

[Greboth 2,721]

The spawn delay sounds intriguing - not sure it is a good thing though.  OW is a team game, if your surviving on the point in a 1 v 4, 1 v 5, 1 v 6 situation then surely you should be rewarded by delaying the opposing team? Even if you play the sacrificial pawn until your 5 team mates turn up it is a legitimate tactic.  So seems a little counter intuitive to seemingly be punished for be able to survive while outnumbered.  I guess we will have to wait and see until we have actually tried it to find out how it works.

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

Less Overtime battles if you ask me.

[cyberninja2601 1,106]

 

 

well I guess people aren't suppose to have a life or go on vacation in order to make sure they keep their skill rating

 

 

[tronic44 3,642]

Placement matches are pointless, seasons are pointless.

They need to sort that shit out.

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

14 minutes ago, tronic44 said:

Placement matches are pointless, seasons are pointless.

They need to sort that shit out.

Agree placement are. You're just being a sissy about seasons 

This game can flip just like we've just seen in 2 days. That's why it's something we keep on playing. A good team goal would be to get us all to platinum - 2500. That's where we should be.

[tronic44 3,642]

4 hours ago, GazzaGarratt said:

Agree placement are. You're just being a sissy about seasons 

This game can flip just like we've just seen in 2 days. That's why it's something we keep on playing. A good team goal would be to get us all to platinum - 2500. That's where we should be.

Nope, crap game. I give up 😉

I'm going to have to put some work in by myself so I can get back up as I'm on 1886.

[Findmartin 235]

Me too rich I'm 1799 😩

[crispymorgan 1,056]

I stayed on for some solo queue comp last night.  What a fucking disappointment this game can be.  Some rounds I literally played out of my skin, and yet just got nowhere.  Stopped the payload nice and quick, but failed to get going on attack.  From widowmakers that do fuck all, to rage quitting team mates solo queues have it all. And to top it off, that fucking robot.  Bastion is OP as fuck.  People on the PTR said he was OP as fuck. You just can't kill a pocket healed bastion, all you do is feed mercy a res.  Get to the point kill everyone, res.  shit.  

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

I stayed on for some solo queue comp last night.  What a fucking disappointment this game can be.  Some rounds I literally played out of my skin, and yet just got nowhere.  Stopped the payload nice and quick, but failed to get going on attack.  From widowmakers that do fuck all, to rage quitting team mates solo queues have it all. And to top it off, that fucking robot.  Bastion is OP as fuck.  People on the PTR said he was OP as fuck. You just can't kill a pocket healed bastion, all you do is feed mercy a res.  Get to the point kill everyone, res.  shit.  

The developer has admitted that Bastion feels OP right now after he played as him so expect a change. I would say give it 2-4 weeks as they will be getting a backlash from the community.

[Stretch616 697]

Changes are live on PTR already for bastion. They've nerfed the ironclad resistance down from 35% to 25% I don't doubt that they'll rush this out to live very, very quickly.

 

As far as placements go this season it's just been stupid. We've all played together and had reasonable runs on the placement games. I just can't fathom out what's the point in the matches if it doesn't affect the eventual placement. I've got my diamond already so I'm going to tank a bit over the next few days so we can make sure that we can all play together. 

[crispymorgan 1,056]

I've managed to play with a few randoms and get my score higher.  the last team I played with were all solo. we all talked and wrecked the other team, it was glorious.. normal service to resume with retards i guess.

[TehMoe 0]

Got lucky and had a few good games earlier today back to diamond now :D.

[cyberninja2601 1,106]

 

 

I got placed at around 1400. I am not sure why or how. I won 7 of 10 matches.

Anyways, it is what it is. Don't know if we can even play together competitive given my scor

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

2 hours ago, cyberninja2601 said:

 

 

I got placed at around 1400. I am not sure why or how. I won 7 of 10 matches.

Anyways, it is what it is. Don't know if we can even play together competitive given my scor

You have to ve within a 1000 points. Most of us still are Pat, I'm just above that but we'd all said we wanted to bring everyone to Plat this season so I'm happy to tank abit to help you out. I got stuck around 1600 and i played solo for abit to get up abit. Let us know when you're next on Pat.

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

I can see where this guy is coming from but I still believe he is too much of a swing either way. Also, I think its because the majority don't want to form tactics around a machine gun turret that just sits there. He's missing the vital point that gamers want; a true Hero that's dynamic and people can associate with. Bastion isn't one of those. That's why the other instapicks no one bats an eyelid.

The changes will hopefully be here sooner rather than later.

[Stretch616 697]

My goal for this season is to bring everyone up to plat. So going to spend some time tanking my rating now so it's more a comparable score. This way we'll keep the team rating down and make sure there's no issue with teaming up. It's frustrating for me to see you guys placed so low so God only knows how much it's pissed you off. We'll get there though dudes!!

As far as Bastion goes, I'm happy with all the changes bar one. Ironclad is too powerful in its current live state. PTR has a patch with the skill at 20% mitigation which sounds a lot more like it. Time will tell, but I'm really digging his viability now as he's a lot more mobile

[cyberninja2601 1,106]

 

 

Well played a bit today and I have been slipping in the rankings. I'm maybe at 1350 now. I can't blame my play just not winning. Not sure the randoms I am playing with want to win. Widow makers and  ana at the back of the map when we supposed to covered and objective. Then you play D. Va and the run right pass you to go get themselves kill. 

I looked at my stats, I got placed at 1450. My highest was 2370. I think I am pushing a rock up hill with my nose at this point. No biggy, I'll just keep playing solo or perhaps play something else.

Mass effect is coming anyways. If the co-op is anything close to ME3, that will be my goto game anyways. Mass effect is probable the best game I ever played. ME3  single player sucked but other than that it was awesome sauce

 

 

 

 

[crispymorgan 1,056]

Check you don't have a stretch616 on your team.  that guy is weak sauce.  He intentionally throws games.

[cyberninja2601 1,106]

 

 

Well can't him. I have plenty of people that seem to throw games however