Overwatch’s latest update features the much-anticipated ‘competitive mode’ along with some other fixes and character balancing. The update weighs in at around 1.3gb so hopefully won’t replace too much of your play time, with that said let’s get into the details.
New Feature: Competitive Play
Competitive play has always been pretty much guaranteed to come to Overwatch seeing as it claimed an eSports presence before the game even officially released. It’s now finally here for the rest of us though, a game mode where you can really test your skills and climb the ranked ladder. Many players in quick play aren’t too bothered about things such as team composition which can be highly frustrating for the more serious Overwatch players who want to really build an effective team and win. This will be a good way to separate these 2 types of players as presumably only those with the sole intention of winning will take on the competitive mode. Once your update installs you can access the new mode by clicking the play button and selecting “Competitive Play”, then sit back and let Blizzard do the matchmaking.
General Updates
Your control scheme now has even more customisation options so you can really custom tailor everything to your specific needs, this includes being able to swap the left and right stick on your controller as well the implementation of the new ‘Legacy’ controls option which works as follows:
- Left stick up/down moves forwards/backwards.
- Left stick left/right turns left/right.
- Right stick up/down aims up/down (these can be inverted).
- Right stick left/right strafes left/right.
- Sticks can also be switched here.
Miscellaneous
A section just for weapons has been added to the hero gallery, interesting to see how this will work, perhaps just for viewing characters weapons close up.
McCree has been added as an AI hero available to use in any game mode containing AI.
The ‘Avoid this player’ option has now been removed from the game as instead of being used to create a better Overwatch experience many ‘Toxic’ players have abused it and Blizzard aren’t happy with the way it’s being used.
Hero Balances
McCree:
- Alternate fire recovery time (the time it takes for McCree to begin reloading) has been decreased from 0.75 to 0.3 seconds.
- Bullet damage decreased from 70 to 45.
Widowmaker:
- Base damage of scoped shot decreased from 15 to 12 (multiplier remains the same).
- Headshot damage multiplier increased from 2x to 2.5x (to counteract the base damage decrease).
- Players must now wait for the unscoping animation to finish completely before they can aim in again.
- Ultimate cost increased by 10%.
- When ultimate is activated her voice will now be audible map wide.
Widowmaker’s changes put a strong emphasis on player skill, body shot damage has been weakened but the skilled player who can land headshots remains unpunished as this damage is the same as it was before the patch. As well as the headshot emphasis it is now also slower to ‘quickscope’ making landing shots more important as time between shots is now increased.
Bug Fixes
General:
- Fixed a bug preventing players from being able to leave as a group.
- Fixed a bug that would cause players’ weapons to auto-snap straight up or down when the crosshair was aimed between 85 and 90 degrees.
- Fixed a bug that caused players who backfilled and then completed a game to sometimes receive a loss on their Career Profile and not receive their XP bonus for backfilling.
- Fixed a bug that would move players toward the source of a knockback rather than away from it.
- Fixed a bug that caused Hearthstone-themed sprays to ignore localization.
- Fixed several framerate issues that could occur when cycling through the hero selection menu.
- Fixed a variety of issues with and made several improvements to ambient lighting.
- Made some improvements to how AI heroes respond to one another.
- Made a variety of performance and optimization improvements across the game.
Maps:
- Players can no longer be resurrected in out-of-play areas on Ilios.
- Fixed an issue with collision on certain areas of Dorado not blocking line of sight.
Heroes:
- Fixed a bug with the “Junkrat RIP-Tire Kills—Average” lifetime statistic.
- Fixed a bug that allowed Mercy to gain Ultimate charge whenever damage boosting an ally who was attacking a barrier or Ice Wall.
- Fixed a bug that allowed Reaper to Shadow Step to unintended locations on certain maps.
- Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause projectiles to hit Reinhardt instead of his Barrier Field.
- Fixed a bug that allowed Torbjörn to pick up Scrap while dead.
And that is finally it, now if you’re still waiting for the update to finish or just want to tell us your opinion then feel free to head down to the comments.
How fair do you feel the character balancing is and how will this affect the gameplay? In what ways will other heroes receive contextual buffs as a result of these 2 nerfs? Let us know what you think below.
