Overwatch beta gets content patch

Source
Blizzard
Date
3/23/2016
Summary
Blizzard today released a major content patch for the Overwatch Closed Beta.

The Mercury
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From Blizzard:

New Escort Map: Route 66
Though the travelers and road trippers who used to cross the US on historic Route 66 are gone, the Main Street of America still stands, a testament to a simpler time. The gas stations, roadside shops, and cafes have gone into disuse, and the fabled Deadlock Gorge is mostly seen from the comfort of transcontinental train cars. But amid the fading monuments of that earlier era, the outlaws of the Deadlock Gang are planning their biggest heist yet.

New Play Mode: Weekly Brawl!
Similar to its namesake feature in Hearthstone, Weekly Brawls are a fun, alternative way to play Overwatch. Each week, we'll rotate in a different Weekly Brawl featuring a set of unique (and sometimes crazy) rules from our Custom Game system.

For example: In one Weekly Brawl, you'll only be able to play Soldier: 76, while in another Weekly Brawl, a random hero will be selected for you each time you respawn. Other Weekly Brawls will restrict you to Support heroes only, or Tank heroes only, or Defense heroes only—and more!

New Feature: Highlights
To complement our Play of the Game feature, personal gameplay "highlights" may now be surfaced to players via the main menu after they've completed at least one match. The game can currently store up to five of the most recent highlights from your active gaming session.

Updated Feature: Play of the Game
Overall, the Play of the Game feature has been a lot of fun and well-received by the community. However, there are still a lot of improvements we'd like to make so that the gameplay highlighted at the end of each match is more varied and interesting to watch.

We will now be capturing different types of gameplay during a match—based on four new categories—and then comparing those moments against each other to find the best Play of the Game for that round of play. The new Play of the Game categories available in this patch are as follows:

 · High Score: This category is intended to feature large multikills and quick killstreaks. The larger the multikill, the quicker the kill streak, and the closer one is to an objective will all increase a player's "High Score" score.

 · Lifesaver: This category is intended to feature situations where one player is able to save another player (or players) from imminent death. For example: If a Reinhardt has an enemy pinned, and that enemy's teammate stuns or kills the Reinhardt, the teammate would be awarded a large amount of "Lifesaver" score.

 · Sharpshooter: This category is intended to feature difficult or skillful kills. For this category, the game will be looking at factors like movement speed, the distance at which the attack occurred, whether or not the attack was a headshot, and if the victim of the attack was in the air at the time, etc. Each of these variables will increase a player's "Sharpshooter" score.

 · Shutdown: This category is intended to feature moments in which one player kills another player (or players) right as they were about to do something particularly impactful. An example of this would be if a Widowmaker snipes a Lúcio in the middle casting Sound Barrier for his team. In this instance, the game will predict how impactful that Sound Barrier would have been and then award the Widowmaker player an appropriate "Shutdown" score in return.

The player who has the highest score in any one of these four categories at the end of the match will receive the Play of the Game. If the winning Play of the Game category is Lifesaver, Sharpshooter, or Shutdown then the category name will be called out during the highlight intro. If the winning category is High Score, however, no callout will be provided.

For a full run down of our patch notes please visit our forum post here.


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