An upcoming Overwatch PTR update will experiment with possible solutions for the imbalance in competitive modes that leads to so many draws. The issue is especially obvious on assault-style maps like Hanamura or the appropriately nicknamed Temple of Drawnubis (Anubis). The news of the Overwatch PTR update comes by way of the battle.net forums, and this exchange between a user and Blizzard VP Jeff Kaplan:
Another user chimed in about Capture the Flag draws and Kaplan responded with “We're also working on reducing Capture the Flag draws and elimination draws but those changes are further out.” This isn’t a new issue for the team, either. Kaplan confirmed in December that the team at Blizzard was looking into the draw rate for various assault maps. Here’s an excerpt from his post:
Your overall chance of a draw in competitive mode is 5.45%, which seems more than acceptable to us.
I wouldn't go so far as to say draws happen every time on Assault or even that draws are rampant. Statistically, that is false. But we think we have some strong ideas to try out when it comes to reducing draws in Assault.
So there you have it. Jeff Kaplan confirms that an Overwatch PTR update is coming “very soon” to address the issue with draws and another may fix CTF, too. This is great news for competitive players, so long as the fix makes sense. Hopefully Overwatch takes a cue from traditional sports and offers up a series of sudden death/overtime scenarios until a winner is decided and not, say, a time-based tiebreaker that rewards the fastest team.
No official word on when the Overwatch PTR update will go live so keep an eye on iDigitalTimes for the latest updates on all things Overwatch.
