‘Overwatch’ Public Test Region out bringing Competitive play and new updates, Avoid This Player ability removed with more changes

Blizzard’s latest update to the “Overwatch” title is now being publicly tested for PC players. The ‘Overwatch” Public Test Region is already available for players who already have a licensed game for Windows and a Batttle.net account in good standing.

Over at the official website, Blizzard confirmed that so far, all regions except China can participated, though the PTR will be hosted on Americas regions, so players anywhere outside this territory may experience low performance and higher latency.

Since this is a public play test, any progress that players make in PTR will not be carrier over to the live game. These include any levels, achievements, skill ratings, loot boxes and rewards obtained from them, currency and unlocked cosmetic items. Because of this, the developer is also ensuring that there will be no in-game purchases during the PTR.

The changes that will be included in the patch is the well-discussed Competitive Play. For level 25 players, Competitive Play will be the venue for more serious encounters that will make use of strategies and skills. There will be 10 placement matches that will help the system assess a player’s skill rating and abilities.

Players will have to prepare for harder and fiercer competitions as they go progress through the levels—provided that performance-wise, the player does well. Better performance will be rewarded accordingly through in-gam items and Competitive Points, which can be traded in for cosmetic Golden Weapons.

“We’ve also made a number of changes to Overwatch’s match format for Competitive Play,” said Blizzard in the website. “Some of these changes are simple interface changes, while others ensure that maps and modes don’t favour one side or another—plus we’ve added a sudden death mechanic that ensures tied games are broken as fairly as possible.”

Competitive Play will not be complete without apt penalties for players who do not display appropriate behaviour in Competitive Play. Leaving a game early like rage quitting or even stepping away from the PC will make the player ineligible to join another game until the previous games has ended. Frequent incidents like these will render the player eligible for restrictions or removal from Competitive Play.

Even though Blizzard already has set rules and mechanics for Competitive Play, the early feedback from the PTR shows that the feature will undergo changes down the line. “Overwatch” Game Director Jeff Kaplan stated that the changes will most likely happen later on, so that these will not impinge on the launch of Competitive Play.

According to IGN, there will be big changes coming down in a few months’ time. But there will still be minor changes happening in Blizzard’s short-term timeline. Some modes will reflect these changes, such as the length of matches for modes like Assault, Escort and Hybrid.

Sudden Death is shaping up to take an interesting turn sometime later on. For now, the Sudden Death timer will be reduced to less than two minutes, though Blizzard may be looking at removing Sudden Death someday.

“I’ve mentioned previously that I believe Competitive Play is the type of system that will require a few seasons before we reach the place where we want to be,” Kaplan said to IGN.