News
Overwatch’s Competitive Mode Undergoing Changes
Blizzard has made Overwatch’s Competitive Season 6 critically important as it eyes to turn the page on what has been a rather rocky Season 5.
No, gamers won’t see a complete overhaul, but they will see a ton of new changes that should help address numerous issues that have plagued Season 5.
Game director Jeff Kaplan discussed all of the changes in Season 6 in a video posted on YouTube, with the big change being that seasons will now be two months long as opposed to three months.
Some of the other changes (h/t Kotaku) include:
- Changes to skill rating decay. In order to avoid decay, you’ll only need to play five matches per week at Diamond and above. Also, if you do suffer decay, you’ll only lose 25 SR instead of 50.
- Control maps are changing. “We’ve noticed that an inordinate number of these matches are going into overtime… this is resulting in very long match times,” said Kaplan. To solve this problem, control maps will be best out of three from now on. Due to the lower time investment, Kaplan thinks this will also make losing a control map “sting less.”
- Placement matches will work differently. In seasons four and five, Blizzard experimented with placing people lower than where their SR should’ve been so they could climb more. This, however, left a lot of people feeling bummed out. “It felt wrong deflating you on purpose just so you would have a sense of progression later,” admitted Kaplan. Placements in season six, then, will more accurately reflect your actual skill level right off the bat.
- Higher tiered matches should now be more balanced. Players won’t be put in as many matches where they stomp the other team and barely gain any SR, but queues might take longer. “Hopefully it’s not super noticeable for most of us… despite the fact that you might have to wait for a long time,” said Kaplan. If times are out of control, however, Blizzard will change it.
You can see the video, right here:
Capcom has officially announced that Free Title Update 4 will be arriving for Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak on February 7th which will include new foes alongside new Anomaly Research content, Event Quests and a new paid DLC.
Velkhana, the elusive Elder Dragon, has been spotted by the scouts of Elgado Outpost and poses a chilly challenge as it can freeze hunters in an attack, and will join the arrival of Risen Crimson Glow Valstrax when the new update drops.
New Anomaly Research will be available, Afflicted Chaotic Gore Magala joining the A8 Quests, and the Anomaly Investigation cap will be upped to 220.
More is in the works for Free Title Update 5, which is currently slated to arrive in April
News
Overwatch 2 Aims to Penalize Players Who Are Friends with Cheaters, Increased Voice Comms Monitoring
Blizzard is leveling up their efforts to thwart cheaters and misconduct within Overwatch 2, as the company aims to penalize players who are friends with cheaters and will amp up their monitoring of voice communications.
The company detailed this in the brand new update for its Defense Matrix Initiative, which is focused on curbing “gameplay sabotage, abusive chat, and cheating” stating their plan to come down on players who team up with cheaters, and more.
Blizzard admitted that cheating in Overwatch 2 is a problem and has “actioned over 50,000 accounts” since the game launched and starting in Season 3 they will be actively identifying players that purposely team up with players who are regularly flagged as cheaters, and will also face potential discipline.
Overwatch 2 will also have improved protection for streamers, as the issue of Stream sniping continues to be a problem, and in Season 3 they will be “introducing new streaming protection features that should be a huge step toward enabling content creators to share Overwatch 2 with their fans safely.”
Blizzard is encouraging players to report any disruptive or problematic behaviour in their matches.
EA and Respawn Entertainment is shutting down their Apex Legends mobile game with the company announced that they will be sunsetting the title this May with EA adding that they have also stopped development on a mobile Battlefield title.
According to Respawn Entertainment, the decision to sunset Apex Legends was not an easy one to make but the company said that “factors” beyond its control have prevented it from “maintaining the high-quality experience and content” players deserve and expect.
Despite the game having a rather strong start, Respawn said that the content pipeline for the game began to “fall short of that bar for quality, quantity, and cadence.”
EA announced that they made the decision to halt the Battlefield mobile title as they wish to create “deeply connected Battlefield ecosystem” which made them arrive at the decision to “pivot from the current direction”
“We remain highly committed to unlocking Battlefield’s enormous potential,” the company said in the statement. “We’re hard at work at evolving Battlefield 2042 and are in pre-production on our future Battlefield experiences at our studios across the globe.”
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