The wildly popular "Overwatch" finally received its ranked Competitive Play mode last week, just over a month after the game's initial release. Since then, Competitive Play has received substantial criticism, especially revolving around the Sudden Death mechanic that comes into play whenever two teams reach the same number of objectives on certain maps.
Now, in "Overwatch's" latest patch, Blizzard has rebalanced the mechanic, adjusting it for each map rather than fixing it at 1 minute and 45 seconds. The new times are as follows:
- Assault:
- Hanamura - 1m35s
- Temple of Anubis - 1m30s
- Volskaya Industries - 1m35s
- Escort:
- Dorado - 1m30s
- Route 66 - 1m35s
- Watchpoint: Gibraltar - 1m35s
- Hybrid:
- King's Row - 1m30s
- Numbani - 1m50s
Only Hollywood's value remains unchanged, still at 1 minute and 45 seconds.
In an interview with PC Gamer, "Overwatch" designer Scott Mercer also announced that Sudden Death would no longer be present in the second season of Competitive Play. The reason stems from the coin flip that determines which team attacks and which defends in Sudden Death - the flip was supposed to be balanced in a way that would give equal opportunity for either team to win.
However, the practical result during actual games was far from balanced, much to players' ire. Mercer said that the team decided that for Season Two, they'd be introducing tie mechanics instead.
Aside from the Sudden Death rebalancing, the "Overwatch" patch also addressed a major issue with leaver penalties, where players who leave mid-match then return often still got penalties as though they were unable to reconnect. It also fixed several issues with certain heroes, especially a particularly well-publicized bug that affected Mercy's ability to switch between healing and damage boosting on the same target.