Blizzard has revealed their plans to restrict teams from using more than one of the same character in Overwatch’s Competitive Play matches. Although the change is coming to ranked, the ability to pile on identical characters in Quick Play will remain.
“The big thing for Competitive Play is we’re going to turn on one-hero limit, so players will not be able to stack more than one of the same hero within a Competitive match,” Blizzard principal designer Scott Mercer told GameSpot. “It’s not going to affect Quick Play at all, but it is something we’re going to turn on for Competitive.”
The release date for the upcoming patch containing the update is currently unknown, but is already live on the game’s Public Test Realm.
Mercer also reveals the developer’s goal to create a more fulfilling experience from games ending in a tie. “We definitely want players to feel like if they had a tie, their time wasn’t completely wasted,” he said.
In response to concerns about hero balancing from the community, changes to Zenyatta and D.Va are coming.
“Zenyatta is getting a little more shields, and he goes a lot faster when he uses his Ultimate,” Mercer explained. “D.Va’s Defense Field, instead of clicking it and it lasting three or four seconds and having a long cooldown, it’s now something where you can toggle it on and off and there’s a meter that runs that.”
In other Overwatch-related news, Blizzard announced an brand-new character, Ana, the healing sniper.