Overwatch Season 3 Starts December 1st, New Skill Rating Confirmed

The next season of Overwatch begins December 1st, as confirmed by principal designer Scott Mercer. Season 2 will end on November 24th.

“First and foremost, we always want to provide the fairest matches that we can. Fair matches of skill between the teams provide the greatest chance for you to have fun in Overwatch. At the same time, we’d also like every new competitive season to feel like a fresh start. These two goals end up being somewhat contradictory. If we completely reset everyone’s Skill Rating (SR) at the start of a new season, then players of all skill levels would end up playing against each other and having poor quality matches until the system could reevaluate each player’s skill. Because of this, we don’t fully reset your SR when a new season begins, and instead use your SR from the previous season as a starting point.”

Mercer went on to explain the massive gap players who benefited from season 1, allowing them to enter season 2 with Gold and Platinum. Players with below-average started the season with higher SR and then dropped to a lower SR, which "didn't feel great". This created a wider gap between Gold and Platinum tiers than the developers wanted. 

This doesn't mean everyone is getting a fresh start in season 3 but instead, players ending season 2 won't be getting the same status in the next season. Instead, your rating will get higher in the start of season 3 for winning and your SR rating will be determined after a series of matches.

Overwatch is now available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

Source: Battle.net

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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