Blizzard trying desperately to reduce draws in competitive Overwatch

Hanamura is one of Overwatch’s most notorious maps for draws in competitive play.

It’s seen the most draws of any of Overwatch’s maps, Blizzard confirmed in an announcement today. To fix that, the developer is making aggressive changes to the game’s public test region. On assault and hybrid maps, competitive Overwatch players on the PTR will certainly see less ties.

Basically, teams no longer have to completely capture one more point than their opponent to score a win. Blizzard has added a tracker that compares maximum capture percentages for both teams. The team with the higher maximum capture percentage on the last point both were trying to complete wins. Instead of using the existing ticks on the capture meter in Overwatch, the tracker will track percentage on a zero to 100 percent scale.

The ticker with its three “pie pieces” will continue to work as it normally does, with the extra tracker coming into play only when a tie needs to be determined. The maximum capture percentage, however, will be tracked throughout the game with a orange triangle marker.

Blizzard provided some examples to help conceptualize the adjustments. Teams that score one more point will still work as it does on the live server. Things change in other situations, however.

In instances where both teams take the first point and not the second, Blizzard will track progress made. If team A on offense captures 73 percent of the point by the time the clock runs out, team B will have to earn 74 percent.

If both teams do capture both points, they’ll both get two points. Should team A finish with three minutes left on the clock, while team B finishes with none, team A will have three minutes to capture one percent of the point. The moment that happens, team A will win.

If neither team is able to score any percentage on the first point, it’ll still be a tie.

“Small differences in capture percentages now matter,” Blizzard said in a post outlining the PTR changes. “Getting full held to zero percent capture progress on a point is now a really big deal.”

Competitive play on the PTR is now limited just to Hanamura and Eichenwalde to test the adjustments.