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Post by KostaAndreadis @ 02:46pm 29/06/16 | 20 Comments
Time to raise your APM because Competitive Play for Overwatch is now live on PC. With PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions to be updated with the new mode next week. What's a Competitive Play? Well its the new ranked mode where after a batch of placement games players are given a skill rating that they can then improve to unlock rewards, and prove their worth against other Overwatch players over the course of a season.

Once you reach account level 25, the mode will become available via the "Play" button in the main menu. Simply select "Competitive Play" from the submenu, and you're ready to enter a match. You can join on your own or in a group, and Overwatch's matchmaking system will automatically find the best game possible for your skill level. Before you can kick off your competitive career, every new player must first complete 10 placement matches in order to obtain their initial skill rating. This rating will be a number between 1 and 100, with higher values indicating a greater skill level. Skill ratings will be visible at the beginning of every match. As you compete, your rating will increase or decrease with each win or loss based on a number of factors, including your own performance and the skill of the other players in the match.


Blizzard has stated for a while now that they planned on having the new mode ready in time for the end of June, and hey, looks like they made good on their word.



overwatchcompetitive playlivepcblizzard





Latest Comments
Obes
Posted 06:13pm 29/6/16
So if someone leaves ... You have to wait a minute. Then you can leave and take the loss or try to play on.

If the original leaver rejoins you can't leave.

2-0 up... leaver ... ugh we might win the rest of us stay. 2-1 the leaver rejoins, and then hangs around the spawn point complaining about his link ... the rest of us have to stay or take a leaver penalty.
:(

Morale of the story, just take the damn loss.
trillion
Posted 10:14pm 01/7/16
wiiiinnnnnnniiiinnnngggggggg

Raven
Posted 11:15am 04/7/16
Well this has been an absolute collossal screw-up from Blizzard. Takes about 20 games to gain a rank, but you lose 1 or more rank every time you lose a game.
Khel
Posted 11:58am 04/7/16
20 games is a bit of an exaggeration, but yeah it does feel a bit off at the moment. Its not a progression based system though like the levels so you wont go up or down at a constant rate, if you play 10 games against people the same rank as you and win you wont earn much for the win, but if you lose against a team significantly lower rank than you they'll gain a lot for that and you'll lose a lot. Its not like everyone is going to be able to grind their way to the top rank, there'll be a point where you reach your skill ceiling and you wont really go up in rank any furthur you'll just hover around and bounce around there.

I think a large part of it is the mechanics behind gaining and losing rank aren't very transparent at the moment, and aren't communicated well, so it feels s***** and confusing.
trillion
Posted 04:29pm 04/7/16
huh how did you get to a ranked position so quickly then?

still slawing through the placement games
Raven
Posted 09:32pm 04/7/16
I'm not going to bother with ranked until the criticisms die down. Happy to keep practicing in casual.
Obes
Posted 10:37pm 04/7/16
One of the worst bits is how they score it.

Basically support classes (and certain tanks) are deemed to have done less. (Not sure how they measure input but it looks like kills, and damage done weight highly).

In a loss they lose more points, in a win they gain less. They might have played the perfect rein and been on fire all match... but didn't get a gold medal oO

And playing as a team means you get spread all over the shop.

End result people pick useless classes that get good kda's but can't always take or hold an objective.
Khel
Posted 12:33am 05/7/16
Yeah, its a bit of a mess at the moment, can be a pretty painful experience solo queing as well with no communication going on and nobody using the voice coms. I'm not far into it yet, only halfway through my placement matches but I've only had one match where people were actually talking and co-ordinating. That match was probably one of the best I've had the whole time I've been playing, but the others, not so much. Had one other win on temple of anubis, but that mostly felt like it was because the other team was s***. They tried the 5 dvas and a lucio rush cheese strat and we shut them down completely (luckily even though my team weren't communicating they were smart enough to know how to counter it). Then the other team just kept trying with their Dvas over and over and over for the rest of the match until they lost.

I guess the obvious solution is to find a team and play it as a premade, but thats not really going to happen for a lot of people, I've got a few friends playing Overwatch that I've played 6 man premades in quick play with, but most aren't interested in playing competitive.

Also, the fact it still leaves everyone split off into their own voice channels doesn't help, in competitive it should force everyone into the team channel at least.
Raven
Posted 08:07am 05/7/16
Yeah - and as a Mercy main, why bother with that until they fix it?

Looks like all the top games both sides are just picking 2x Lucio, 2x Tracer and 2x Winston anyway, which clearly indicates there's some balance issues with classes.
Khel
Posted 11:05am 05/7/16
Not balance issues per se, just at the top level they're always going to min/max and a meta is going to develop around what are strong picks and counterpicks, realistically though for the other 99% of players choosing the same comps as pro teams wont help you win, because most of us aren't playing at that skill level. A lot of comps are adopting an unofficial 1 hero limit rule as well to stop those cheese stacking strats, but theres no real standard for it. I've seen some pretty cheese strats even at pro level when theres no hero limit, like switching to 3+ tracers in Overtime to keep blinking in and out of a capture point to keep the Overtime refreshing.

Pharah is very strong though too at the pro level, theres a guy called Talespin who plays a pretty amazing Pharah. And Zarya is pretty strong in the right hands too. Zenyatta pretty much doesn't ever get played, and I don't think Dva does much either, so there probably is a bit of an issue there, but *most* heroes get some kind of play even at pro level. Torb and Bastion don't get a lot of play at pro level just because they're too easy to deal with when you know what you're doing, but they still occasionally get picked as a situational thing or for a sneaky suprise Bastion.

But yeah, I wouldn't let the pro scene have too much impact on what your play or what you pick, its like when people get hung up on which classes in WoW are currently simming out the best or are topping ranked charts, it makes a difference if you're absolutely s*** hot and on the bleeding edge and you're playing at that level, but for most of us we haven't even hit the skill cap of the different classes/heroes/maps so just playing more and practising more is going to be more of a help and make more difference to your game than picking a hero with a strong pro meta.

Having said that, Mercy is probably not a bad thing to be in competitive, you might still get the odd team that are truly s*** and wont defend you but you've got the potential to really influence and swing the result of a match as Mercy if you're on top of s***. Just don't be that pistol Mercy that doesn't want to heal or I'll slap you.
Raven
Posted 11:58am 05/7/16
Bastian gets picked a bit for Hanumura 2nd checkpoint on defence, but yeah - that's about it as you say. It's no surprise Pharah is a good top-level char.

And yeah, I'm the pistol Mercy :P

Not really, but my stats haven't caught up yet from earlier games when I was learning (I'm at 170 games with >60% winrate), but lately I'm averaging 2k damage/8-10 elims and 7-9k heals per game.

I still laugh at s*** like I did last night though - had both a Tracer and Reaper hassling me, pistol-whipped both of them :P Okay, you're going to get newbs like that occasionally, but still hilarious.
Khel
Posted 12:26pm 05/7/16
Yeah, I had a Mercy in a game a few days ago who was literally pistol only, wouldn't even swap to the staff to heal or damage boost and whenever anyone asked for heals would reply with "Sorry, pistol only"
Teza
Posted 04:45pm 05/7/16
Im down to play this if anyone wants to join me

Lvl 70 skill rating 54 I
Raven
Posted 07:59pm 05/7/16
akashra#1603 if you're looking for players to add.
Some Fat Bastard
Posted 09:00pm 05/7/16
wiiiinnnnnnniiiinnnngggggggg
I fell asleep after 3 minutes.
Khel
Posted 12:11am 06/7/16
Its frustrating, I love the game, but I'm just having less and less fun with it. Can spend a few hours playing and have maybe 1 or 2 good games and the rest just piss me off cos they're full of spastics who make no effort at all to actually play as a team. Think I'll probably just give up on it unless I can find a way to actually enjoy playing it, cos currently it just makes me angry.
Python
Posted 10:13am 06/7/16
I haven't played Overwatch in a couple of weeks, kind of bored with it already. I can't even be arsed to load it up when other people are playing.

Guess I'll wait for battlefield one or something.
Obes
Posted 10:48am 06/7/16
Take last night as an example

First game 2-0 in KOTH... leaver ... We lose. Lose 2/3 of a level!
Win the next 3. Still behind. 3-1...

Went 8 and 6 for the night (with 3 lose by leavers) 3 POTGs. All played as tank or support because there were always 3 to 5 people who would only play genji/hanzo/reaper/mei/junkrat
All of the games were with 1 on ranking average, most were 0.

End result lost 2 ranking levels... WTF with a positive win loss and positive KDA for the night.
Jeffro
Posted 04:48pm 06/7/16
If it's anything like Halo and CoD ranked playlists then it is an exercise in frustration to play solo. I only played Halo ranked playlists because I built my friends list up on Xbox Live enough to queue with a full party on mics.
trillion
Posted 06:16pm 06/7/16
I fell asleep after 3 minutes.


yeah game recs are quickly a snore fest

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