New PS4 Overwatch Update: Competitve Play + More
Players of Overwatch on Playstation 4 rejoice! Blizzard has dropped a new PS4 Overwatch update which brings not only competitive play, but a plethora of other goodies to the console.
Over on Battle.net, Blizzard lays out exactly what players can expect from the 1.3 GB update and it is actually quite a bit. Competitive mode provides a new arena for players to test their skills, while champions and bugs also received some tweaks and fixes. Everything in the Ps4 Overwatch update is below:
New Feature: Competitive Play
Overwatch is raising the bar for competitive players, giving them the perfect arena to sharpen their skills and hone their strategies. Introducing Competitive Play.
Competitive Play is designed for players who truly want to put their skills to the test, and offers a more serious experience than our Quick Play or Weekly Brawl! modes. To make sure everyone playing the mode has a solid understanding of the game’s mechanics, maps, and heroes, Competitive Play will be locked until you hit level 25.
Once you reach level 25, the mode will become available under the “Play” button in the main menu. Simply select “Competitive Play” from the submenu, and you’re ready to enter a match. You can join on your own or in a group, and Overwatch’s matchmaking system will automatically find the best game possible for your (or your group’s) skill level.
Competitive Play is live right now! To learn more about this new feature, click here.
GENERAL UPDATES
Gamepad Controls
- Players can now swap the left and right sticks on a control pad
- “Legacy” controls option has been added:
- Left stick up/down moves forward/backward
- Left stick left/right turns left/right
- Right stick up/down aims up/down (these can be inverted)
- Right stick left/right strafes left/right
- Sticks can also be switched
- Improved dead-zone controls, giving players increased accuracy during off-center and diagonal stick movement
- Added an option to adjust Aim Assist strength (defaults to full strength)
Miscellaneous
- “Weapons” section added to the Hero Gallery
- Added McCree as an AI hero in Practice vs. AI, Play vs. AI, and Custom Game modes
- Disabled “Avoid This Player” functionality and removed option from the game UI
Developer Comments: The “Prefer”/”Avoid” player system was designed with the best intentions; however, it’s not currently performing in a way that we feel is healthy for the game. While the “Prefer This Player” option is more or less working as intended (and is thus still enabled), the “Avoid This Player” option has impacted the matchmaker in negative way and led to some very poor player experiences across the board. Although we like the idea of being able to say “hey, I’d prefer not to play with this person,” the implementation of the mechanic is not where it needs to be. We’re still looking at ways to iterate and improve upon features that empower players to reduce toxicity and harassment in their games; we just want to be sure these features don’t accidentally punish positive community members as a side-effect.
HERO BALANCE CHANGES
- Peacekeeper
- Alternate Fire
- Recovery time (i.e. the amount of time before McCree starts reloading) decreased from 0.75 seconds to 0.3 seconds
- Bullet damage decreased from 70 to 45
- Alternate Fire
Developer Comments: McCree was performing too well against all targets, making him feel like a must-pick in many situations. By reducing the damage of his alternate fire, McCree is now significantly weaker against tanks like Roadhog and Reinhardt, but still maintains his lethality against smaller targets like Tracer and Genji.
- Widow’s Kiss
- Alternate Fire (Scoped Shot)
- Base damage decreased from 15 to 12
- Note: Scoped shot damage multiplier remains unchanged
- Headshot damage multiplier increased from 2x to 2.5x
- Players must now wait for the unscoping animation to completely finish before scoping
- Base damage decreased from 15 to 12
- Alternate Fire (Scoped Shot)
- Infra-Sight
- Ultimate cost increased by 10%
- When activating Infra-Sight, Widowmaker’s voice line will now be audible map-wide
Developer Comments: In the right hands, Widowmaker can often feel unstoppable—even when just landing body shots instead of critical heads shots. The changes to her alternate fire weaken body shot damage while leaving her headshot damage unchanged. Additionally, we felt her Ultimate ability, Infra-Sight, was coming up a little too frequently, especially considering its impact on the game.
BUG FIXES
General
- Fixed a bug preventing players from being able to leave as a group
- Fixed a bug that would cause players’ weapons to auto-snap straight up or down when the crosshair was aimed between 85 and 90 degrees
- Fixed a bug that caused players who backfilled and then completed a game to sometimes receive a loss on their Career Profile and not receive their XP bonus for backfilling
- Fixed a bug that would move players toward the source of a knockback rather than away from it
- Fixed a bug that caused Hearthstone-themed sprays to ignore localization
- Fixed several framerate issues that could occur when cycling through the hero selection menu
- Fixed a variety of issues with and made several improvements to ambient lighting
- Made some improvements to how AI heroes respond to one another
- Made a variety of performance and optimization improvements across the game
Maps
- Players can no longer be resurrected in out-of-play areas on Ilios
- Fixed an issue with collision on certain areas of Dorado not blocking line of sight
Heroes
- Fixed a bug with the “Junkrat RIP-Tire Kills—Average” lifetime statistic
- Fixed a bug that allowed Mercy to gain Ultimate charge whenever damage boosting an ally who was attacking a barrier or Ice Wall
- Fixed a bug that allowed Reaper to Shadow Step to unintended locations on certain maps
- Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause projectiles to hit Reinhardt instead of his Barrier Field
- Fixed a bug that allowed Torbjörn to pick up Scrap while dead
The new PS4 Overwatch update finally brings players features which have already hit on Xbox One and PC.
