Overwatch developer Blizzard is about to launch Season 6 of Competitive Play on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Overwatch Competitive Season 6 has an August 31 release date and a 5pm PDT start time.
It’s bad news for UK fans, who will have to stay up until 1am BST on September 1 to start ranking up.
And Blizzard has made big changes to Competitive Season 6, which will only last for two months instead of three.
As game director Jeff Kaplan told fans, this will make it feel like less of a grind and ultimately a bit more exciting. Points will be adjusted to account for the shorter season.
Blizzard is also addressing the issue some players have with skill decay and skill placement.
After artificially lowering skill placements to create a sense of progression, Blizzard will now place people at the appropriate level from the start.
Likewise, skill decay won’t be quite so severe in Overwatch Competitive Season 6.
Diamond level players will only need to play five games a week to avoid decay, and the number of points deducted will be reduced from 50 to 25.
On the downside, higher level players might have to wait longer to find games, as Blizzard tries to better balance teams.
High level players will also be moved to lower skill tiers if they can’t maintain the minimum skill rating for that tier.
Blizzard explains: “After a loss, the game will check to see what a player’s current tier and skill rating are – if their skill rating has not exceeded the minimum for their current tier for the past five games, they will be demoted. (Players will never be demoted on a win.)”
But Competitive Points will still be awarded based on the highest position achieved over the season, so there’s no need to worry about missing out on rewards.
“So, for example, if you reached Platinum during Season 6, but ended the season in Gold, you will still receive a number of Competitive Points based on your Platinum ranking,” Blizzard adds.
Control matches will also be best out of three in order to cut down the number of overtime periods.