New Overwatch patch can make Assault games quicker than ever

Blizzard seems to have finally found a solution to eliminating draws on Assault and Assault/Escort hybrid maps in Overwatch—but it’s leading to games ending faster than anyone thought possible.

A new PTR patch in testing has introduced a tracker to force teams to capture a percentage of an objective, to try and reduce draws. This fix has been called for by the community for a very long time, and it’s one that has had Blizzard scratching their heads while trying to find something that works better.

But with this fix has created another issue. If neither team captures an objective, the last team to play attack simply has to sit on the objective uncontested for a split second to get a higher percentage and therefore capture it to win the game.

This gif, posted by r/Derkki on Reddit, illustrates exactly how quickly a game can end with this new way of scoring.

The thread in question is filled with people who are concerned with the fix, as most seem to find this feature unfair or unbalanced. It works the same way as Escort maps, where a team needs to move the payload further than the enemy team to win.

The main argument against it, though, is that the payload is right outside of the attacking team’s spawn, whilst an Assault objective is found through numerous choke points and defensive hold positions. That makes it extremely unlikely for something like this to happen on an Escort map.

Many are suggesting that the new percentage-based scoring be changed to the “pie-slice” ticks on the objective capture, although that has the potential to create more draws yet again, which is what Blizzard is desperately trying to move away from.

On the other hand, opponents of this change point out that teams just have to fight on the objective in these situations now—as opposed to holding a chokepoint further forward on the map.

While this attempt to reduce draws has been welcomed by the majority of players, it still needs some fine-tuning to find the optimal solution. Either that, or players will just have to adapt to the new ways to play.