If you're an "Overwatch" player who's getting pretty tired of the somewhat broken and open-for-improvement, then this news is for you. The first season of "Overwatch"'s competitive play is finally ending, and with a new season comes changes to the format.
In a new Developer Update video released yesterday, "Overwatch" game director Jeff Kaplan announced that for the Competitive Play format, Blizzard is bringing back a tier-based ranking system, and more importantly, is removing sudden death rounds for maps that keep score.
For the return of competitive tiers, Blizzard is moving away from the soft skill rating-based system that they introduced in the first competitive season. Players will still be ranked according to the exact skill rating they have (from 1-5000), but now these ratings are divided into tiers, which range from bronze to diamond, and possibly even higher. This change was made because the numerical rating system would feel unfair, especially after players would take a loss, even if they managed to play well in the team they were in, while they wouldn't gain that much more points after a win.
As players advance through ranks and tiers in "Overwatch"'s Competitive Play, they won't fall down to lower ranks, unlike "Hearthstone"'s Ranked Play mode. This changes when players reach the master and grandmaster ranks—this is the only time their ratings can fall to lower tiers if their performance is terrible.
As for tie situations, "Overwatch" will no longer do sudden death and coin-toss tiebreakers. There will still be ties, but it seems as though Blizzard has put work into making sure these happen less, perhaps on the balance side of the game. Meanwhile, the competitive points players have will be multiplied in season two, but that also means that golden weapons, which can only be purchased using competitive points, will also cost more.
"Overwatch"'s current Competitive Play season is ending tomorrow. Meanwhile, there will be a few weeks' worth of buffer before the next season starts next month on September 6.