by JR Cook - 8 years ago     show comments

Competitive Season 1 is coming to a close this week, and with the next couple weeks off we’ll all be preparing for season 2. However, there are a lot of changes coming to how competitive mode will work next season and Game Director Jeff Kaplan made a lengthy video about them.

The biggest change will be how skill rating will work. It’s no longer a scale of 1-100 but will be a scale of 1-5000 and split between bronze, silver, gold and up much like how StarCraft and Heroes of the Storm ladder systems work. Top 500 players will now also have a requirement of competing in at least 50 matches.

The new tiers will be Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, and Grand Master. For all tiers you won’t be able to fall below your tier except for Master and Grand Master ranks. Season rewards will now be based on what tier you were able to reach that season.

Skill rating decay will be implement for Diamond, Master, and Grand Master tiers. You will decrease 50 points every 24 hours if you don’t play competitive mode for a full 7 days. This system is in place to keep the top players constantly playing to keep their high rank instead of just stopping once they reach it.

The other major change coming is that Sudden Death is not going away completely. Control maps will still be best out of 5. Assault Maps will still play like season 1 with the time bank system but will also have a bonus 30 seconds after the first initial cap. Paylod and Hybrid maps will play on a time bank system  similar to how assault works. If your team finishes the map with time to spare you will later get a second round on attack to see how far you can push the payload the second time. The winner will be whoever pushes the Payload the furthest.

With this system in place, ties can still happen, but they will be very rare. Basically if neither team pushes the Payload or doesn’t capture point A then a tie can happen  and both teams will receive competitive points, but not as much as if there was a winning team.

There is a lot more that Kaplan discusses, check the video below for the full details.

What do you think of the new changes to competitive mode? Does this get you excited for season 2?