Overwatch's Second Competitive Season Now Live

Instead of the planned September 6 debut, Overwatch's second season is now live

For those not in the know, this new season introduces major gameplay changes for competitive gamers. These changes were first released in the Public Test Realm, for dedicated players to get a feel of the coming changes. It's also a way for Blizzard to keep on balancing the game.

The first season's competitive ranking has been completely overhauled. To replace the Competitive Point Ranking comes the more traditional Tiered Ranking we see in other games, such as Starcraft II, League of Legends and Counter-Strike. They've also rebalanced the interaction among players in different ranks.

The current tiers are as follows: Bronze capped at 1499, Silver capped at 1999, Gold capped at 2499, Platinum capped at 2999, Diamond capped at 3499, Master capped at 3999, and Grandmaster at 4000 and up.

For Bronze to Diamond, group restrictions placed will allow them to play with players at a skill level difference of 1000. This is a big relief because in the earlier season, at 1-100, the restriction was at a big 50, meaning that players of vastly different skill ratings would compete against each other. This was a source of frustration for most players because it makes their games unbalanced.

For Master and Grandmaster, this skill rating difference is 500. This is something to look forward to as the expected quality of games is now set to a higher standard.

Speaking of a higher standard, it will now be more difficult to maintain a spot in the Top 500, players who get a special end-of-season reward. Players gunning for the top spots now have to win at least 50 competitive games while playing at least one game every week. Failure to meet these requirements means ineligibility.

Every competitive win now nets a gain of 10 competitive points, with a golden weapon skin at 3000. This is a simple rebalancing of the previous season's 1 point gain to 300 point cost. The new feature in competitive points, however, is a soft cap at 6000, meaning players cannot receive more than 6000 competitive points in the entire season.

This can still be supplemented by an end-of-season reward of competitive points depending on the rank you finish with. It can go from a mere 100 points at Bronze, to a whopping 3000 points at Grandmaster. So for those of you with the desire to see some weapon bling in-game, you have your work cut out for you.

Last but not least, the pesky Sudden Death mechanic has been completely removed from the game. This used to leave players feeling frustrated because they attribute the loss to a lack of luck, instead of a lack of skill. After all, who wants their fate decided by a simple coin toss in a game of skill?

Instead, Blizzard has kept to letting the metrics decide. Victory now rely completely on the timers. If an opposing team secures points or payloads faster than the opposing team, they'll have more time in subsequent rounds to further their lead if the points come to a tie at the end of the first round. This is perhaps the most awaited change this season.

All that aside, what are you waiting for? Go download the game and see for yourself. Blizzard's very positive surprise is sure to keep the fans and dedicated players on their toes.