Overwatch: Top Play of the Game Characters Revealed
By Dalton Cooper 15 September 2016
Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan reveals the top three characters that are most often featured in the Play of the Game for both Quick Play and Competitive Play.
One of the ways Overwatch separates itself from other shooters is its Play of the Game moments. Instead of simply showing the final killcam like other FPS games, Overwatch attempts to show players the best performance, whether that be from an especially impressive killstreak or a Mercy that has revived the entire team. For those that want to be featured as the Play of the Game more often, they may want to consider playing as one of the characters that earn it the most.
In a forum post by game director Jeff Kaplan, Blizzard revealed the top three Play of the Game characters in Overwatch for both Quick Play and Competitive Play, following update 1.3. For Quick Play, the top three characters are Bastion, Genji, and Torbjorn, and for Competitive Play, the top three characters are Mercy, McCree, and Reaper, respectively.
The discrepancy between the two lists shows that Overwatch gamers play Quick Play and Competitive Play differently. It seems as though more people choose Defense characters in Quick Play than in Competitive, where Offense characters are best represented. Mercy is the only Support character on either list, but she gets Play of the Game more than McCree and Reaper.
Another explanation as to why the lists are so different is the fact that Competitive mode doesn’t allow more than one of the same character on any given team. Since Torbjorn and Bastion are capable of setting up turrets, it’s not uncommon to see multiples of them in Quick Play games as a way to grief the opposition. It would be interesting to see what these stats would be if Quick Play had the same restrictions as Competitive Play, but one has to imagine that the lineup would change at least a little bit.
Speaking of changing the lineup of most frequent Play of the Game characters, Blizzard may be using this data to inform a future update. According to Kaplan, the rate at which Mercy earns Play of the Game is disproportionate compared to the other characters, and so there’s a chance Mercy could get nerfed in an upcoming patch, or Blizzard may continue to tweak how Play of the Game is decided.
Play of the Game still needs some work, so that players playing Tank and Support classes can be featured more often. Characters like Zenyatta, for example, can carry an entire team to victory, yet rarely winds up in the Play of the Game. Blizzard will likely address this issue in the coming months, as its goal is to keep Overwatch updated regularly.
Overwatch is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: Jeff Kaplan
