Overwatch 2 is taking stringent measures for disruptive behavior and cheating and requiring new accounts made on or after October 4th to win 50 Quick Play matches to unlock Competitive. In a new post, it revealed all of the changes coming to Competitive play in the sequel, starting from Season 1
Skill Rating or SR is gone, and Skill Tier Divisions are the new ranking form. “We decided to remove SR as a numeric value to relieve the sense of being stuck at a certain rank. Seeing your SR go up and down after each match almost felt like taking a test with the teacher passing or failing you based on each question rather than your complete work. It was a lot of pressure, and it doesn’t give players an accurate representation of how they’re performing overall in Competitive.”
You’ll still have tiers like Bronze, Silver, Gold, Master and Grand Master, but each will consist of five divisions, from five (the lowest) to one (the highest). These divisions represent a 100 SR range, and players can expect a competitive update every seven wins or 20 losses. Top 500 also exists and doesn’t have any tier divisions.
Portrait Borders are gone, and Competitive skill tiers aren’t displayed before each match. Skill Tier and Division aren’t “completely aligned with the matchmaking rating we use to determine matches.” As a result, the match UI will display your player title cards. Medals are also gone since they “were too arbitrary to paint an accurate picture of a player’s contributions to their team. Our goal with this new scoreboard is to communicate information about how the match is progressing more openly and transparently.”
Placements are also seeing changes. Players will remain unranked until they’ve scored their first seven wins or 20 losses but should expect to begin in a lower-tier division. Also, Competitive players from before the launch of Overwatch 2 will have their rankings modified after it’s available.
“Overwatch 2 is a very different game, so we applied a formula that allows returning players to redefine their rank when they dive into updated Competitive. Most players will find their rank is slightly lower when they start, as they will be learning new concepts and metas. However, players who got to learn more about the game in our betas, or who follow the Overwatch League, may find themselves ranked higher than ever.”
Another new feature in the Career Profile section is Game Reports. These provide “a detailed summary of all the matches played in your current session of Overwatch.” A report details all the matches in a session divided by game mode, with each match providing stats on heroes used, how you performed and so on. Checking heroes played provides more specific information on what you did on each hero. Matches played will persist across sessions in a future update, and there will be a timeline for checking “key moments” from a match.
As for the Top 500 leaderboards, it becomes available two weeks into a new season’s start and is divided by input pool. Players will need to complete 25 games in a specific role in Role Queue or 50 games in Open Queue to place. Skill Decay is also returning, so if you haven’t played in a while, your internal matchmaking rating will be lowered to “help us re-evaluate and determine their current skill level. We’ll also adjust their internal matchmaking rating more quickly, up or down, as they play matches after returning. Returning players will therefore quickly get back to their appropriate skill tier and division as they continue to play.”
As for Top 500 rewards, commemorative sprays and icons for each season are being removed, and new Competitive titles added. The latter can be earned as players climb the ranks and become available at the end of the season. Players will still earn Competitive Points, which are used to purchase Golden Weapons (with Sojourn, Junker Queen and Kiriko receiving the same) for 3000 points.
Overwatch 2 is out on October 4th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Stay tuned for more details en route to release.
