Pour one out for all the people who can’t stand playing Overwatch’s most popular maps, because the next season is going to make it even harder to play on anything else.
Whenever a classic Overwatch map shows up as an option on the map voting screen, you know you’re probably stuck with it. Most players prefer the likes of King’s Row—a hugely popular map that’s been in the game since launch—over the newer options, and, currently, it takes a lot of luck for the system to pick one with only a couple of votes. Starting next week with season 2, the already low odds of playing on an unpopular map will plummet: Blizzard is changing the rules so the map with the majority of the votes will automatically win.
“We don’t want to entirely remove the joy of variety, but when most of the lobby wants something, we want to honor that,” associate game director Alec Dawson wrote in a blog post today.
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RIP to the King’s Row haters, or anyone who actually enjoys making the trek between points on any of the gigantic Flashpoint maps. Overwatch is a payload and control point game now and you will like it. A “random” option will be added, but I can’t see that dissuading anyone from clicking the same maps they’ve been clicking since map voting first showed up.
The only thing that might work in your favor as a map contrarian is a backend change to how the three map options are chosen. The system will now prefer maps you voted for over ones you haven’t. Theoretically, this means your favorites might show up more often, but it’ll still be based on the aggregate of everyone else’s choices.
Another map voting phenomenon that Blizzard wants to address is the fear around new or reworked maps. In season 2, those maps won’t knock your rank down as hard when you lose on them in the competitive mode. I’m not convinced this will be enough to shift people’s tendency to pick the safest options in a mode that rewards consistency, but it’s a nice courtesy for the rare times those maps get picked.
Blizzard keeps going back to old maps and adjusting them to fit with how the game is played today and I expect that to keep happening as time goes on. These map voting changes are probably being made with that in mind.
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I’ve played enough Overwatch to know how stubborn people are when it comes to the maps they love and hate though. We’ll see if any of this impacts the ongoing reign of King’s Row when season 2 starts on April 14.
