GamingOverwatch

Overwatch Sept 15 update makes leaver penalties more severe: patch notes

Michael Gwilliam
Sombra shoots her machine pistolBlizzard Entertainment

A new Overwatch patch has gone live on the PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, bringing in a slew of Workshop changes, a brand new Tracer event, and more severe penalties for leavers.

While the big thing this patch is the brand new Tracer event where players can unlock an incredible new skin and unique sprays with their own voice lines, there are some other nice additions.

The first of which is a long-awaited change to leaver penalties. Going forward, players who leave competitive games early will face severe repercussions and could be banned for the remainder of the competitive season more quickly.

This is a big deal for those tired of having their matches ruined because someone from either team decided to disconnect, leave the game, or even rage quit.

Tracer's new comic book skinBlizzard Entertainment
The Tracer event is the big addition this patch.

Additionally, a new Competitive 3v3 Lockout Elimination season has begun, marking the third installment. So, for players trying to earn that rare Top 500 spray, this could be your chance to finally get one.

Finally, the Workshop is getting some “big” updates in the form of scaling. This means that new modes can be added in which the size of heroes can be altered.

We can’t wait to see what Workshop gurus cook up with all this new functionality.

Tracer comic sprayBlizzard Entertainment
The new event has some great sprays.

Full patch notes:

TRACER’S COMIC CHALLENGE

Issue #1 of a 5-part comic book series, Tracer – London Calling, is now available! Blink into battle and celebrate to launch with unlockable in-game content! Wins in Quick Play, Competitive Play, Arcade, or Experimental will earn you a themed player icon, spray, and an epic skin: Comic Book Tracer!

Now through September 28, earn additional rewards by watching Overwatch streams on Twitch! Earn a total of 6 Tracer’s Comic Challenge sprays, loaded with their own special sound effects.

Learn more about Tracer’s Comic Challenge here.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Competitive 3v3 Lockout Elimination

  • Season 3 of Competitive 3v3 Lockout Elimination has begun!

Ranked Leaver Penalty Adjustment

  • Adjusted ranked leaver penalties. Penalties are now more severe and will lead to a season ban more quickly

WORKSHOP UPDATES

  • The valid range for numbers stored in variables and used in mathematical expressions has been increased

New Action

  • Start Scaling Players
  • Stop Scaling Players
  • Start Scaling Barriers
  • Stop Scaling Barriers

Developer Comments: We’re pleased to bring you the ability to scale players to very small and very large sizes, but it comes with one notable caveat: Scaling players to very large sizes and moving them into spaces where they don’t easily fit can impact server load and potentially cause your instance to shut down. There are two ways to mitigate this: First, you can choose one of the Workshop maps. These are designed for experimentation and can accommodate very large players. Second, you can use the “Disable Movement Collision With Environment” action. This will cause the player to pass through walls and ceilings, though the player can still stand on floors if the “Include Floors” option is set to False. (Collision with floors does not have the same server load implications.) When in doubt, you can display the Server Load values in the HUD in order to determine how scaling is affecting server load.

BUG FIXES

General

  • Fixed a bug that caused training bots to not display buffs and debuffs on their health bars
  • Fixed a bug in Deathmatch that caused the Defeat string to potentially display for the winning player on the Victory screen
  • Fixed a bug that caused ping icons above player heads to subtly shake infrequently
  • Fixed a bug that caused placeable objects to clip into level geometry on specific maps
  • Fixed a bug in Career Profile that caused some UI elements within the Achievements tab to not display correctly
  • Fixed a bug with the Overwatch League Replay Viewer that caused incorrect team names to display
  • Fixed a bug that caused group invites to not appear properly if the invitation was sent to a friend logging into the game
  • Fixed a bug in Mystery Heroes that caused the Games Played statistic to not increment properly when backfilling and losing a match
  • Fixed a bug that caused inconsistent hitbox placement for heroes that are frozen while moving

Maps

Blizzard World

  • Fixed a bug that caused some voice over sounds to not playback properly in the Nexus Experience location

Hanamura

  • Fixed a bug that exposed a small gap in level geometry that allowed certain heroes to escape the map

Route 66

  • Fixed a bug that exposed a small gap in level geometry that allowed players to shoot through it

Temple of Anubis

  • Fixed a bug with level geometry that allowed players to stand on top of an unintended location

Heroes

Ana

  • Fixed a bug with the Vacation highlight intro not animating properly

Brigitte

  • Fixed a bug with the Feskarn skin that caused an element of Brigitte’s shield to float into the air during emotes

Doomfist

  • Fixed a bug that caused primary attack sounds to play at a high volume

D.Va

  • Fixed a bug with the Sitting victory pose not displaying properly

Echo

  • Fixed a bug that caused players hit by Echo’s Focusing Beam to not hear the attack sound

Genji

  • Fixed a bug where canceling Genji’s Dragonblade swings to Swift Strike could cause inconsistent application of damage at certain latencies
  • Fixed a bug where Genji would not move forward if using Swift Strike while aiming at a wall close in front of him
  • Fixed a bug where Genji could sometimes not immediately look around at the end of Swift Strike, which happened more often when dashing towards a wall or ground
  • Fixed a bug that caused Swift Strike to sometimes incorrectly display visual hit indicators

Mei

  • Fixed a bug that caused Ice Wall to break when in close proximity to Cryo-Freeze
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Ice Wall from moving when placed on the moving fan in Junkertown

Orisa

  • Fixed a bug with the Medal victory pose not displaying properly
  • Fixed a bug with Halt! that caused tether functionality to break when attempting to pull at max range

Pharah

  • Fixed a bug that caused the sound for rockets rotating on the ammo clip to not playback properly
  • Fixed a bug with the Barrage highlight intro not animating correctly if the Lifeguard skin is equipped

Reinhardt

  • Fixed a bug that could cause Reinhardt’s shield to emerge at an angle exposing him to enemy attacks

Sombra

  • Fixed a bug that caused Sombra to not be healed by the payload under specific circumstances

Tracer

  • Fixed a bug that allowed Tracer to Blink into unintended areas in Temple of Anubis

Workshop

  • Fixed a bug that could cause the game to enter an endless match restart cycle if too many of certain actions were executed immediately on match start
  • Fixed a bug that could cause players to lose their bodies altogether when the “Start Forcing Player To Be Hero” action was combined with Control maps or the “Spawn As Random Hero” setting
  • Fixed a bug preventing automatic reloads from being disabled when disabling reloading via Workshop
  • Fixed a bug preventing D.Va from properly handling ammo/reload related actions/values when out of mech
  • Fixed a bug where strings with unicode characters could be trimmed incorrectly when copy-pasting
  • Fixed a bug where certain values failed to export from inspector when copying as action text
  • Fixed a bug that caused issues with third person spectating when scaling
  • Fixed a bug that caused McCree’s Flashbang to not hit targets when scaled up to 20 times
  • Fixed a bug that caused air and ground movement speeds to differ when setting a character’s movement speed to very slow

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