Overwatch has been treated to a new beta patch, which adds a punishment system for people who leave in the middle of games, Competitive Play, and new progression rewards.

　　Blizzard posted the patch notes to the Battle.net forums, detailing the penalties for rage-quitting and more. Now, if a player has abandoned enough games that their completion percentage is below the developer's required threshold, they'll receive a warning. If they continue to leave games, they'll be docked seventy-five percent of the collected experience in future games. Your completion percentage is based on your 20 most recent games, and the penalty will be removed once your completion percentage rises above the threshold. Blizzard did not disclose what exactly what the threshold is.

　　The first-person shooter also adds ranked matches with Competitive Play. Once you reach level 25, you can jump into the mode, where players will be able to "rank up" through a series of divisions and tiers in month-long seasons. Whether you're looking for a match on your own or with a group of friends, the mode will try to set you up with people who are also looking on their own or with friends, depending on your situation. The mode will also try to put you up against a team of comparable division and tier rankings.

　　The new progression rewards include new sprays, player icons, and voice lines. Blizzard has removed some of the less popular sprays and voice lines, while the developer has also added Legendary skins for a number of its heroes.

　　You can see a full list of those skins and the rest of the patch notes at the bottom of this article.

　　Overwatch releases on May 24 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The open beta will run from May 5-9, and players who have preordered the full game by April 29 can jump into the beta on May 3.

　　

General

Progression Rewards

Several new sprays, player icons, and voice lines have been addedSome of the less popular sprays and voice lines have been removedNew Legendary skins have been added for several heroes: "Gearbot" Bastion"Junebug" D.Va"Scavenger" D.Va"Sparrow" Genji"Fool" Junkrat"Hayseed" Junkrat"Scarecrow" Junkrat"Breakaway" Lúcio"Slapshot" Lúcio"Abominable" Mei"Yeti Hunter" Mei"Raptorion" Pharah"Thunderbird" Pharah"Plague Doctor" Reaper"Stonehardt" Reinhardt"Islander" Roadhog"Sharkbait" Roadhog"Commando: 76" Solider:76"Night Ops: 76" Soldier: 76"Comtesse" Widowmaker"Huntress" Widowmaker"Arctic" Zarya"Siberian Front" Zarya

Leaving Games

Leaver Penalty If a player's game completion percentage falls below our required threshold, they will now receive a warning message (this percentage is calculated based on their 20 most recent games)If that player continues to leave games after receiving this warning, they will incur a 75% XP penalty for future gamesThis penalty will be removed once the player raises their game completion percentage above our required threshold (again, this percentage is calculated based on their 20 most recent games)Play Interactivity Players who are in the team spawn room and have selected a hero will no longer be removed for inactivity until 45 seconds after a game has startedPlayers actively browsing heroes in the “Assemble Heroes” selection screen will no longer be considered inactiveRemoved initial warning message displayed after leaving a gameNote: Competitive Play will have additional rules and penalties for leaving games

Technical Updates

Network Graph You can now enable a network graph while in-game to help diagnose client networking issuesHit CTRL+SHIFT+N to toggle the network graph on or offNetwork Quality Status Icons The client will now pulse network status icons when packet loss or a network stream stall is detectedYou can disable these icons from the Gameplay settings menuHigh Bandwidth Custom Game Option You can now enable a high bandwidth mode for Custom Game, changing the client update rate from 20.8Hz to 62.5HzImproved the regularity of player commands being sent from the client to the severReduced the maximum rewind time allowed on behalf of high-latency players Note: High-latency players will now extrapolate and potentially mispredict as a result

Map Balance Changes

Control Maps

Each round now has a unique nameRounds are now shuffled in random orderIlios Minor revisions to art and collision have been made throughout the mapLijiang Tower The control point room in the Garden has been enlargedThe pillars in the Control Center have been removed and two new walls have been addedRoute 66 Revised first tunnel on the left outside of the starting attacker spawnRemoved ability for players to enter the hanging train above the starting attacker spawnFurther adjusted payload size to ensure all heroes can move around it in narrow locationsSignificant revisions to collision have been made throughout the map

Hero Balance Changes

Mei

Ice Wall Can now be destroyed early by activating the ability againDeveloper comments: This is a simple quality-of-life change that helps Mei have better control of her Ice Wall.

　　

Mercy

Caduceus Blaster Now automatically reloads when not in useCaduceus Staff Players can now swap between healing beam and damage beam without losing the beam’s targetGuardian Angel Range increased slightlyCooldown decreased from 2 seconds to 1.5 secondsWill now destroy environmental objects when you come in contact with themCan now be cancelled by using the ability againDeveloper comments: Some quality-of-life improvements for Mercy players, as well as overall improvements to Guardian Angel. We think the changes will help her reliability and survivability when she is the middle of a firefight.

　　

Symmetra

Photon Shield Shield amount reduced from 50 to 25Developer comments: We feel that Symmetra's win rate is still too high at all levels of play. We want to do a pretty big swing here to see how it impacts her overall. This is a significant change that we'll be monitoring closely.

　　

Torbjörn

Rivet Gun Now automatically reloads when not in useDeveloper comments: Similar to the pistol change for Mercy, this is a simple quality-of-life change that helps streamline using multiple weapons.

　　

User Interface

Career Overview

Reorganized the statistics on the Main Overview, Hero Comparison, and Hero Statistics pagesAverages shown are now per game averages, updated from per minute

Game Options

An option to select custom crosshairs has been addedThe following hero-specific options are now available: Genji Automatically climb wallsHanzo Automatically climb wallsJunkrat RIP-Tire: Automatically climb wallsMercy Toggle Beam ConnectionReinhardt Toggle BarrierSoldier: 76 Hold to SprintWidowmaker Toggle ZoomMouse Sensitivity While ZoomedMouse sensitivity scale has been reset and re-calibrated

Spectating

Several polish updates have been made to Spectator Mode

Bug Fixes

Maps

Fixed an issue on Watchpoint: Gibraltar that allowed players to access out of map areasFixed an issue where leaver penalties were being incorrectly applied to an account