Mercy players have noticed a decrease in skill rating rewarded after a win in Overwatch’s competitive ladder and an increase in points removed after a loss.
Overwatch support players have been collecting data to confirm their suspicions, documenting a “clear falloff in gains” for Mercy players. But Overwatch support players don’t have to wonder any longer: Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan confirmed in the game’s forum that there was, indeed, a bug affecting Mercy players’ SR.
“We fixed an issue that was causing Mercy’s contributions to be lower as it pertained to skill rating reward at the end of a competitive win,” Kaplan said. “We’re still investigating to make sure the issue is entirely fixed. The fix we put live was integrated on Tuesday but we’re still hearing some reports. We’ll keep working to fix it if it is in fact still broken. We’re trying to verify right now.”
Related: Mercy guide: strategy, tips, and tricks
Kaplan didn’t specify exactly what caused the problem, but support players have speculated that the SR loss is “tied to the values a healer gets from assists towards [the] on fire meter,” according to the Overwatch forum post.
Before the Orisa patch went live, Mercy gained around 50 “on fire” points for every assist she got, according to player research. After the patch, players found that number to be considerably lower. And it’s not only Mercy—players have noticed it for Ana, too.
Players on the forums report mixed results to Tuesday’s patched, with some seeing a change while others have not. Time will tell if the Overwatch team have truly found a solution to the problem.
