Overwatch Patch Reduces Mercy's Play of the Game Rate
By Dalton Cooper 17 September 2016
Blizzard releases a new patch for Overwatch on PC, PS4, and Xbox One that makes it less likely for Mercy to get Play of the Game, and also tweaks the Eichenwalde map.
Last week, Blizzard revealed the top Competitive Play characters in Overwatch in terms of which heroes tend to earn the coveted Play of the Game most often. To the surprise of many, angelic healer Mercy earned Play of the Game more than any other hero in Competitive Play, and apparently by a wide enough margin that it was a problem that needed to be addressed. And so Blizzard has done just that, releasing a new patch for Overwatch that makes it less likely for Mercy’s ultimate ability to be named the Play of the Game.
The new patch for Overwatch, which is already available now across all platforms, makes one other major change to the game. Besides making it less likely that Mercy will earn Play of the Game at the end of a match, Blizzard has also tweaked the new Eichenwalde map that was added earlier this month. From this point forward, the payload on Eichenwalde should move a little quicker, making the map less difficult for those on the Attack side.
Blizzard has also made some other changes to Overwatch with the new patch that are smaller, but still important. One that fans may appreciate the most is a Competitive Play tier legend that explains the new symbols and ranking system that Blizzard has implemented for Overwatch‘s second season of Competitive Play. Previously, there was no explanation to what the symbols meant in the actual game itself, which could have led to some confusion for fans.
On top of those tweaks, the latest patch for Overwatch also squashes some bugs. A bug that didn’t properly announce triple kills is now gone, as is one that made it possible for players to obtain a higher skill rating than they actually had. It’s unclear if that references people that simply had the wrong skill rating displayed, or if it is Blizzard looking to fix the broken ranking system, wherein a player is able to get to the top of the leaderboard by losing instead of winning.
Past Overwatch updates have made balancing tweaks to heroes along with the bug squashing and UI changes, but this latest update doesn’t. It still addresses some lingering issues with some heroes though, fixing a bug that showed the wrong arrow docked in Hanzo’s bow, and another that made it so Junkrat didn’t receive credit for kills he got with his RIP-Tire ultimate ability. A bug involving Reaper was also addressed, which allowed him to reach unintended areas when playing on the Hollywood map.
This patch isn’t too big, but Overwatch fans will likely appreciate it nonetheless. It makes some subtle, but important changes to the game that should make it a better experience overall for dedicated players that are still battling it out even months after its release. There’s no sign of Blizzard slowing down updates for Overwatch moving forward, and here’s hoping one of the next updates is the highly anticipated Sombra update.
Overwatch is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: Blizzard
