IRVINE, CA: Team 4 at Blizzard Entertainment have finally implemented long-awaited changes to make Competitive mode in Overwatch an enjoyable experience for the player base. It’s been roughly two years since most people enjoyed playing the ranked game mode.

In a developer update, Jeff Kaplan spoke about the changes, which include role queue and a better system for moderation of toxicity. “I know the players were complaining about Competitive being laborious to play for years now. However, we really just wanted to focus on skins and underwhelming events for a couple of years. Finally, after so much complaining and a meta that sucked the soul out of most of our professional players, we’re finally going to listen. We’re implementing changes to Competitive mode.”

Role queue will mean that players can queue up for competitive and be guaranteed to play their preferred role in the team, whether that be damage, tank or support heroes. This also means that a 2-2-2 role lock will be implemented into the game and the professional scene, including the Overwatch League. Heroes have been widely retooled and rebalanced as well, in order to account for the new 2-2-2 circumstances in which they will be played.

In-game Competitive seasons will also now align with Overwatch League stages, starting and ending on the same days. This is part of many changes that encourage increased synergy between the Overwatch League and the player base. Compositions in Competitive games will more closely resemble what is played in the Overwatch League, thanks to the 2-2-2 lock. Additionally, the Competitive map pool will also be restricted to the same maps as the current Overwatch League stage map pool. This means that Competitive players at home will play on the same maps as the current Overwatch League stage. Quick Play will retain an open map pool, as well Competitive during the Overwatch League off-season and between stages.

We spoke to your average Overwatch player, John Smith, about the new changes. “I don’t know what took so long,” he said. “It’s quite clear that the majority of the player base has been unhappy with how Competitive has felt to play over the last few years.”

“So many of my friends stopped playing because they couldn’t play the heroes they wanted or they just got put on blast by toxic teammates. I’m amazed it took so long for the devs to implement these changes. Why they didn’t make them sooner, I have no idea.”

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