Overwatch Season 2 Begins And New Map Eichenwalde Is Live

Overwatch's season 2 has finally begun, bringing with it the new map Eichenwalde, and  numerous changes. Hopefully, all for the best.

Skill rating is no longer on a 100 point scale, so you won't feel like you're failing Chemistry exam when you're rank is "53." Instead ratings will range from 1-5000. But players with a skill rating above 3000 will have to make sure they play or else they're skill rating will decay—taking part in a competitive match every 7 days.

Season 2 also introduces skill tiers, ranging from Bronze to Grandmaster. We talked quite a bit about the change in last week's MMOs.com Podcast.

You may not be able to group with your OP friends this seasons as an easy way to rank up; "players will be unable to group if they have a skill rating difference of more than 1000 from their potential group mates." The restriction ought to prevent smurf accounts from quickly climbing the ranks and throwing off matchmaking balance.

Sudden Death has been removed, "and we’ve incorporated an improved version of the time bank system that we’ve been using for Overwatch’s Assault maps into our Escort and Assault/Escort maps." Thank you. I despised the coin flip.

Instead, Season 2 will operate solely on a time bank system:

• If a competitive match is tied after both teams have played one round attacking and one defending, the time bank system will initiate a new attack/defend rotation, giving teams a chance to break the tie.
• The amount of time that each team will have for their second round on attack depends on how much time was left on the clock at the end of the previous round.

Alright, time to find out where I rank.