GazzaGarratt

Taken from Eurogamer: How Overwatch Skill Ratings are calculated will change again for Competitive Play Season 3 which, incidentally, begins a bit earlier than expected on 1st December - there will only beone week of downtime following the 24th November end of Season 2. In a nutshell, Skill Ratings are going to skew lower to begin with but your gains from winning games will be greater early on. Increasing always feels better than decreasing, after all, and I seem to have spent most of Season 2 trying to claw back my initial Skill Rating. Here's principal designer Scott Mercer explaining it more betterer: "When Season 2 started, we had WAY more players in Gold and Platinum than we initially intended, and way fewer in Bronze and Silver. This was the result of how we calculated your initial SR for Season 2. We tried to partially reset player SR at the start of Season 2, but the results were not as we expected. Instead, below-average players started Season 2 at a higher SR than they should have been given their performance in Season 1. This meant that as they played in Season 2, their SR would often drop to a lower value, which didn't feel great. It also meant that there was a much wider variation of skill in the Gold and Platinum tiers than we wanted. This is something we want to avoid in Season 3." So: "We're testing a different way of determining your starting SR for Season 3 on the [Public Test Realm]. We're leaning more towards trying to keep things fair rather than giving everyone a fresh start. We're also going to initially tune your SR to be slightly lower to start. "This change will mean that some players will not start in the same tier for Season 3 that they were placed in for Season 2, and that your SR gains from winning will be a little higher at the beginning of the season. After you play enough matches, however, your SR gains and losses will go back to normal."

Removed The Division and No Man's Sky sub-forums. Will look to remove Warframe from the upper tier sub-forums as well over the next few days unless anyone wants to keep it there? I've also been thinking about categorising threads under their game name. This would take a considerable time to do but I would absolutely invest the time in this if it helps see what gaming threads we have for certain games and would assist with duplicate themed threads, keeping old threads alive, checking back on specific news, etc. Main reason for me thinking about this is because whenever I want to know about games, 9/10 I'll look for the game and then see what news is about. Can I have some thoughts from you lovely people please? I think it would cool to also understand how you all search for information, old or new. It may unearth an alternative way of neatly putting the forums. Thanks all.

Destiny Festival of the Lost Patch Notes (Event runs from October 25 to November 8): Activities Visit Eva Levante in the Tower to Trick or Treat and earn paper Masks Visit Tyra Karn in the Iron Temple to assist with a task Trials of Osiris has become a bit spookier during Festival of the Lost The following sources can yield a unique Festival of the Lost vanity item: Trials of Osiris Crucible Matches Strike Hoards Social The Tower, Reef, and Iron Temple have been decorated in honor of Festival of the Lost Festive music has been added in social spaces Eververse Treasures of the Lost is now available and contains new Masks, Bad Juju Ornaments, a Sparrow, Ghost Shells, and Consumables Once Festival of the Lost ends, the Bad Juju Ornaments will be added to Radiant Treasures Last year's Festival exclusive Emotes Monster Dance, Zombie Dance, and Boo, have returned to Eververse Two new limited Emotes are available: Terrify and Howl Vendors Eva Levante will stop selling Emblems during Festival of the Lost in order to provide players with special Festival items After Festival of the Lost, her normal Emblem inventory will return

Did you all keep your raisins?? I did! To be honest, no-one shouldn't miss out on the loot, however the Ascendant Raisins that they have now turned into will get you a head start on a walk around the NPCs to eventually come back to Eris who has a special loot for you....a shader On top of that, there is a little secret in the Tower. Head down to the emotes kiosk and there will be a special broom sparrow. Apparently it goes at the end of the Festival of the Lost season but its worth having a look at it if you're popping to the Tower to see some friends.

Anytime @PlasticGaming! I'm with Didds, the UI is really annoying me. I'm hoping that they'll be some sort of sprint development that delivers enhancements within 4 weeks. I think it's perfectly reasonable these days to some small improvements within this time.

Great first scene. Really well put together. I have confidence that the campaign will live up to expectations and I'm looking forward to putting some hours in on it. I need more time with MP to make a worthwhile comment. I do enjoy the overall experience, especially in a group. At the minute though, there are quite a few things niggling me. The UI wasn't thought out at all, which really bothers me (cos I sometimes can't get in a game or struggle to pick a weapon) and controls are just a little off. Hit detection being off is hurting the game quite a bit. Need to find a weapon that suits me and my style which should help the gameplay some more for me. It does look fantastic. They have thought about the aesthetics which is cool. I wish the squad size was at least 8 rather than 5.

This is awesome man. Knifing is the funniest part of this game. Can't wait to do it with the spade.

The main voice actor from New Blood teased people in an interview that he may be working on a sequel as we speak. He pointed to an E3 Bethesda trailer that had the games they've made and dates.....New Colossus was a name with the date blank after Old Blood. I soooooo hope this is true. Loved New Blood, such a fantastic storyline and campaign mode, you could literally get hooked into the passion of the main character BJ Blackowicz.

Your PlayStation 4 dashboard will soon host a Tournaments feature, in collaboration with ESL. Xbox One recently got a Tournaments feature of its own, but Sony's partnership with ESL, the world's largest esports company, is an intriguing point of differentiation. Announcing the feature, ESL said users would be able to find and participate in competitions it organises, which will number in the hundreds every week and be open to PS4 users around the world. "We're incredibly excited to be able to offer this seamlessly integrated solution for the most passionate esports fans," ESL exec Marcel Menge said. "In the partnership with Sony Interactive Entertainment, we're going to host hundreds of weekly tournaments for players from any corner of the world. Anyone who wants to try their hand at competitive gaming, can now easily do so across a wide variety of titles." NBA 2K17, Mortal Kombat X and Project Cars will be among the first games to support tournaments when it launches in the near future - but there's no word yet on a specific date.

The device looks real neat. Everyone loves a gimmick. Connectivity whilst roaming would concern me so would want to see how that operates. Most importantly, its got to have the solid game foundation every console needs. They have some good names signed up but we'll see what eventually hits the Switch soon enough.

This may be on the cards you know, I'm sure I read it somewhere. Also, moved thread to Nintendo section.

That list doesn't jump out at me as amazing titles this year. There's some good ones like I said before, but I struggle to pick a really good top 10 out of that list. I think 2017 will blow it out of the park, including the emergence of VR. Most value for money though has to be Rocket League considering it was free via PS+.

New character Sombra should have been released yesterday however there was no sign of her once I updated the game. She was leaked via the Overwatch forums in code: There’s a post on the Overwatch forums which reads “la que tiene la información; tiene el poder” – a Spanish phrase which translates to “she who has the information, has the power”, and which has appeared in previous Sombra tease material.

Just like Overwatch you can drop Halloween style items on Rocket League until 1st November. I'm guessing you'll be able to trade the items as they aren't stock items.

The update dropped new ornaments for these 4 guns. They aren't available from Radiant Treasures until Festival of the Lost drops. Bad Juju looks awesome.

Looks like another to be hyped about! @jSyn66 is gonna kill me but I own both red dead and red dead undead nightmare and haven't played any of them. Got them alongside 3/4 games at xmas one year and just never got round to them. Sounds like I should be trying them out.

The drought of decent AAA games made me think if this year has been a decent one or not. The social aspect of games has definitely increased and we are seeing across the board further ongoing support to games. Increased patches, fixes and enhancements alike which are helping t fine tune our existing game base. However, the amount of AAA games this year just hasn't been enough in my opinion. That's not all a bad thing, it makes you then have a wider range of games to play because there isn't that significant pull from one stand out game. But the fact that when AAAs have come out, they have been vastly underwhelming, for example No Man's Sky - Great concept, poorly executed. The Division - great concept, poorly executed (see the theme). There's a bunch of nearly games that just tried to jump too high too quickly rather than consolidate and enhance the great concepts they have. To finish on a couple of positives, other part that 2016 has suffered from is delays (that's not positive!). Yeah, I think this is great news for 2017. Developers are realising you can't just code lazy shit anymore cos you just get shit out. They have seen some of the light that my other positive note to make has. Bang for your buck - The Witcher. I haven't played it but is plain to see and hear from everyone that played it and what was in the bundle that content matters. That doesn't mean we're going to get some great games off the shelf, it is more likely to come in drops (DLC) but the idea of developers creating great solid gameplay and healthy content drops is the way forward. TLDR 2016 - A little weak at the knees. 2017 - A great promise awaits.

I've fixed my own post

How's the season going so far people?

Knew you both wouldn't disappoint me

These look amazing.

Riot has announced "Work’s just now kicking off on a practice tool," it said in a new update, "but we’re ready to talk broad notes." The practice tool is going to be "low-scope, simple, and straightforward" at first, "close to a punching bag and weights for practicing execution." Players of all skill levels should get some value out of it, but multiplayer support for team drills or pro play isn't currently planned. The tool will give players access to infinite gold and enable them to reset cooldowns, lock their levels, and freeze minion spawns. "Practice tool is League’s version of sparring with a punching bag: the extra training you can do with a mechanically unfamiliar champion so you can enter the Rift with more confidence," Riot said. "We’re still figuring out the full list of features, but future additions will be similarly focused on helping you practice more effectively by yourself and polish your mechanical abilities." I'm not LoL expert by any means but this prototype seems to have made the community very happy.

You know I'm trying to get Chris to bite Rob, didn't expect you to pull on it! I get to complete them hunters helped but if I'm honest when we did the raids I can't remember us having to check we had a hunter. I do recall we needed Warlocks for self res perks though on certain sections. As i didn't roll as one, was it more for the hard raids?