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Fixes for Overwatch’s competitive mode coming today (hopefully)

Summer Overwatch

Update Jul 6, 2016: Jeff Kaplan has posted on the official forums that some fixes are being deployed today for competitive play.

Overwatch’s game director has said on the forums that they’re hoping to issue some fixes for competitive mode later today.

If you need the lowdown on earning ranks, here’s the best Overwatch competitive guide you’ll find.

The post was made in reply to a thread specifically about the problem of leaving games and returning still counting as a full disconnect. It reads simply “We’re fixing this. Hopefully today. Apologies for the issue.”

It’s fairly rare that Blizzard will patch single parts of a system rather than in bulk, so expect some tweaks across the board, including most of what’s detailed below. Assuming the patch does make it in today – likely some final tests to finish. Our Overwatch patch post will be updated if and when it does.

Original story Jul 3, 2016:Overwatch’s competitive update arrived last week, but quickly unearthed some issues not prevalent in the PTR build that had a pretty heavy impact on the game.

The ranking system for competitive is a fairly important part of the mode, so to find it not awarding equal MMR points to Control maps compared to Assault, Escort or Hybrid was a bit of an annoyance to players who happened to win.

Blizzard quickly identified the problem and issued a fix on Thursday to restore Skill Rating influence to the same footing across all maps, but further issues have been reported by players experiencing undue punishments.

Those suffering poor network conditions during competitive play encountered a bug that would result in disconnected players who returned within the one-minute timeout window still being punished with a loss.

Discouraging disconnects is important in a mode which requires on absolutely equivalent team sizes and a lot of reliance on teamplay, but obviously something’s not right when players are playing by the rules and still being hit for it.

Responding to fans asking whether anything was being looked into for this, Game DirectorJeff Kaplan saidthat the team should “have some fixes coming (hopefully) next week.”

Other, non-bug related issues with competitive, such as the contentious “Coin Flip” Sudden Death decision-maker,have also been addressedas they’ll be reworked into a fairer way to settle draws in the next season.