Tag: Multiplayer video games

We Did It, Joe: Overwatch 2 Will Make Ranked Suck Less

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Image: Blizzard

Overwatch 2 will make adjustments to both its matchmaking process and its ranked system in the coming weeks, according to the latest developer blog posted today. This is good news for anyone who has spent the months since launch confused or frustrated by the sequel’s ranking system, or those who feel like their matches are almost always lopsided (myself included, as evidenced by my most recent take on Overwatch 2‘s competitive mode).

The lengthy blog post ensures us that Blizzard “has seen [our] feedback on matches with wide skill variation,” and has plans to address our concerns. After explaining away a few of the reasons why I either roll an enemy squad or am rolled by them, the post details what steps Overwatch 2 will take to fix its matchmaking and ranked problems.

Season 3, which will start sometime next month (there’s no set date yet) will “try to place pairs of players with similar MMR [matchmaking ranking] on each role on either team,” which means you’re less likely to get tanks with a wide gap in skill between them on opposing squads. With only one tank in traditional matches, that gap can feel like a chasm, so the goal of the update is to “make the average MMR between each role more evenly matched to each other instead of looking more broadly across the entire team to balance things out.” Yes, Overwatch 2‘s current matchmaking system does not ensure that each role is matched with an evenly ranked opponent.

The next season will also change how often your rank is adjusted in Competitive mode, as the team has heard us loud and clear that playing up to 26 matches just for your role to stay the same is infuriating. “Starting with Season 3, you’ll now get a competitive update with every 5 wins and 15 losses. In the mid-season patch for Season 3, we’re also updating the UI, so information about your progress toward a competitive update will always be viewable.” Praise be.

Oh, and seasonal rank decay and rank resets are getting thrown out the window starting with Season 4—but don’t expect a full rank reset ever, you absolute animal. “A full rating reset wouldn’t create a great experience since it would mean throwing out all the knowledge we have about players. This would cause new players to be matched against OWL pros, which is fun for about 30 seconds (we’ve experienced this ourselves in internal playtests).”

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While I can understand why players may want a full rank reset to get the nasty taste of this current ranking system out of our mouths, it’s clear that it would cause even more chaos. Let’s just be happy that we’ll get more frequent rank adjustments, a clearer picture of where the fuck our rank is going, and better matches going forward. Maybe I’ll enjoy playing again.

Alyssa Mercante

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January 30, 2023
Bungie Explains Destiny 2’s Recent 20-Hour Outage

Screenshot: Bungie

Two days ago, Bungie turned off the Destiny 2 servers while the studio looked into a problem that had players apparently losing progress on in-game challenges. This outage lasted a bit longer than everyone expected, with the free-to-play loot shooter remaining offline for nearly 20 hours. So what happened? Today Bungie pulled back the curtain and explained exactly what went wrong and why it had to roll back the game, erasing a few hours of folks’ quest progress in the process.

On January 24 at around 2:00 p.m., Bungie tweeted that it was taking Destiny 2 offline while it investigated an “ongoing issue causing certain Triumphs, Seals, and Catalysts to lose progress for players.” A few hours later, at 5:51 p.m., Bungie tweeted that it had possibly found a fix for the issue and was testing it, but was unable to specify when or if Destiny 2’s servers would come back online. Nearly four hours later, Bungie tweeted for the last time that night, announcing that Destiny 2 would not be playable that evening. Nearly 12 hours later, at around 9:55 a.m, Bungie announced it had finally solved the problem and servers would be coming back online following a hotfix. The nearly 20 hours of downtime had some players worried about the game’s health, and its future. After years of bugs and broken updates, it was really starting to feel like the seven-year-old shooter was being held together with duct tape.

So what happened during those 20 hours and why was the game down for so long, seemingly with little warning? Bungie has explained what broke, why, and how it was fixed in its latest blog post. And surprisingly, the developer is more transparent than you might think, going into technical details of the issue.

According to Bungie, shortly after releasing a previous update for the game (Hotfix 6.3.0.5) players began reporting that many Triumphs, Seals, and catalysts had vanished. Bungie realized that this was being caused after it moved some “currently incompletable” challenges into a different area of the game’s data. To do this, Bungie used a “very powerful” tool that lets the studio tinker with a player’s game state and account. Apparently, due to a configuration error, Bungie accidentally “re-ran an older state migration process” used in a past update. Because of this error, the tool copied old data from this past update into the current version of the game, which basically undid some players’ recent in-game accomplishments

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“Once we identified that the issue resulted in a loss of player state,” wrote Bungie, “we took the game down and rolled back the player database while we investigated how to remove the dangerous change from the build.”

After creating a new patch that removed the mistaken change the issue was fixed, and following some testing, Bugnie deployed the update. However, as a result of this patch, all player accounts had to be rolled back a few hours before the troublesome update went live. This means any player progress made between 8:20 and 11 a.m. on January 24 was lost. Any purchases made during this time got refunded, too.

While it sucks that the game was down for so long and that the team was forced to spend what sounds like many late hours trying to fix their mistake, it’s refreshing to see a developer be so open and honest about what happened and how it was fixed. In a time when games feel buggier than ever and players are fed up with delays, outages, and broken updates, it’s smart to pull back the curtain and show everyone just how hard it is to make, maintain, and sustain video games as complex as Destiny 2.

Hopefully, next month’s new Destiny 2 expansion, Lightfall, and the upcoming Season 20 rollout will go a little smoother than this recent 20-hour hiccup.

Zack Zwiezen

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January 26, 2023
Overwatch 2’s ‘Sexual Harassment Simulator’ Mode Made A Brief Return

Image: Activision Blizzard

Trigger warning: sexual assault and harassment.

An inappropriate Overwatch 2 game mode reappeared, but it’s not one to get excited about. The mode, titled “sexual harassment simulator,” was played enough times that it appeared as one of the most popular over the weekend for some players, according to PC Gamer, which spotted the reappearance just before Blizzard quickly pulled it down.

Another “sexual harassment simulator” was discovered in October 2022, but both tasked players with knocking down Overwatch 2‘s female heroes (like Mercy and Widowmaker) while playing as the cowboy Cole Cassidy and repeatedly crouching over their bodies, apparently, as PC Gamer reported, with the word “raping…” until the character in question is labeled “pregnant” as an AI-controlled Torbjorn supposedly fills the role of the baby. This is disgusting on so many levels it’s not even funny, especially because players are forced to play as Cassidy, previously known as McCree, the same name as the ousted Activision Blizzard developer who took part in the controversial “Cosby Suite” meetups.

A screenshot of the custom mode was posted to Overwatch’s official subreddit by user Joyolo13, who simply asked: “What in god’s name?”

“Lol I remember seeing this every day in [Overwatch 1],” said Redditor sw1nky. “Can’t say I’m surprised it’s still around, [to be honest].”

“McCree is back in the game I guess,” said user FoulfrogBsc.

Kotaku was unable to find the custom game mode in Overwatch 2 as it appears Blizzard took the “sexual harassment simulator” offline—for now. So, it seems the company is aware that such a mode exists but might be having a hard time preventing it from reappearing in the game.

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“Inappropriate or explicit content has absolutely no place in our game,” a Blizzard spokesperson told PC Gamer when the outlet asked about the first version of the mode last year. “We immediately removed the user-created game mode once made aware of its existence. We are continually working to improve automatic filters to prevent inappropriate user-created content, and manually removing any that are not caught by the system.”

Kotaku reached out to Activision Blizzard for comment.

While this is at least the second time the “sexual harassment simulator” has popped up in Overwatch 2 specifically, players noted that a similar mode existed in some form in the original Overwatch game. At the time, players posted PSAs to warn the community about the offensive content. Of course, not all player-created game modes are this egregious. But it is concerning that this issue has come up more than once within a few months.

Levi Winslow

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January 24, 2023
Destiny 2 Finally Unlocks One Of The Most Confusing Parts Of The Game

Image: Bungie

Destiny 2 is fixing a bunch of stuff for the month and change ahead of February’s massive Lightfall expansion. Players won’t have to grind so much to get into Grandmaster Nightfall missions. Iron Banner will be much more generous with armor drops in the weeks ahead. And armor mods, one of the most fun but esoteric parts of Bungie’s loot shooter, are finally getting unlocked for everyone.

Destiny 2 sucks for new players. You can have plenty of fun, but some of the most interesting parts of the game are locked behind dozens of hours or more of grinding, unlocks, and luck. One of the things that new players have difficulty accessing is armor mods, which drastically change the ways you can play the game, but which are only sold on a rotating basis by a single in-game vendor named ADA-1 who is hidden in the far corner of the main social hub. While longtime players have access to all of them, new players can get stuck with huge holes in their arsenal when it comes to crafting fun builds. No longer.

Yesterday, Bungie unlocked all standard armor mods for all players. While raid mods and artifact mods will still need to be earned, Warmind, Well, and Charged with Light and other powerful mods no longer need to be found. Even if you just started playing Destiny 2, you can start experimenting with different synergies or, more likely, copy the best builds making the rounds online.

Screenshot: Bungie

“With big changes coming to buildcrafting in Lightfall, we want to give everyone a chance to enjoy all of the standard mods in their current state for the rest of the Season,” Bungie wrote in Thursday’s This Week At Bungie (TWAB) blog post. The studio will outline how mods will work differently in next week’s preview. In the meantime, however, players can enjoy some other quality of life improvements.

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Grandmaster Nightfalls now unlock at 1580 power and only require you to hit 1595 to reach the difficulty ceiling. Focusing costs for Trials of Osiris, Crucible, and Gambit weapons and armor have also all been reduced to 25 Legendary Shards. And most importantly, the remaining Iron Banner events this season will make it almost twice as easy to hit the rank reset and earn a full set of the hot new vintage Iron Banner armor.

Things have been extremely touch-and-go in Destiny 2 recently. While Season 19 has been applauded as one of the more fun and less grindy updates in some time, there have also been plenty of technical bugs and multiplayer complaints getting in the way. Last week’s Iron Banner session had all sorts of issues, not the least of which was players grinding tons of matches without managing to complete a set of armor. The upcoming changes should help earn some good will back ahead of Lightfall when Destiny 2 will likely once again start to feel like a completely new game again.

Ethan Gach

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January 12, 2023
Game Removes Loot Boxes, Players Revolt Instead Of Celebrate

Popular free-to-play mobile game Brawl Stars is doing something a bit different. In an era where it seems every game is trying to nickel and dime you with more and more stuff to buy, instead it’s removing loot boxes and all random rewards entirely from the game. It’s yet another sign that loot boxes are likely to become a relic of the past as lawmakers and players push back on the random rewards. But that doesn’t mean Brawl Stars players are universally happy about their removal.

Released in 2019 for phones and tablets, Brawl Stars mixed cute characters with MOBA-like gameplay and some battle royale elements. The end result was a fun top-down competitive action game that I played for weeks and weeks. But since I stopped playing, millions have continued to enjoy it: Brawl Stars has made over a billion dollars in profit for Supercell and still has an active player base and community. Now, Supercell has removed all loot boxes from the game, and reaction to the change is oddly mixed.

Announced in a Brawl Talk video posted last week, Supercell’s latest update to Brawl Stars has removed all random rewards from the game. These boxes were mainly used to unlock new characters in the game. Since its release three years ago, Brawl Stars has heavily featured loot boxes as part of its rewards. But with yesterday’s update, that’s no longer the case.

Supercell / Brawl Stars

“No more probabilities, no more random rewards, and no more playing the guessing game when you unlock Brawlers,” said the game’s lead designer Frank Keienburg in Supercell’s Brawl Talk video.

Yesterday, as part of this update, all unclaimed boxes were automatically opened and all the rewards were given to players accordingly. Moving forward, Keienburg and Supercell say that all rewards—including its battle passes—will be replaced with “different, deterministic rewards, some of which are new to the game.” Now, players have a new battle pass-like feature, The Starr Road, which lets them unlock all characters for free via grinding. Players can now just buy any brawler they want with gems, instead of randomly buying dozens of loot boxes to maybe get a specific hero.

“We’re making this change for a few reasons,” continued Keienburg. “Mainly, moving away from probabilities and chance, which will make things more fair and predictable for you. It also gives you clear and exciting goals every time you play the game.”

Of course, there’s also the possibility that Supercell and other devs are removing loot boxes as various governments around the world begin cracking down on them with proposed new laws and regulations.

While I think removing loot boxes is a good thing and something worth celebrating—especially as mobile games continue to be some of the worst offenders with even good games like Marvel Snap including predatory purchases of over $100 or more—the community reaction is far less positive. While some players seem happy about the removal of random reward crates, others expressed disappointment. The comments on the Brawl Talk video has players rallying against the devs and demanding boxes return to Brawl Stars.

Why? For some it seems that the excitement of a loot box outweighed the frustration that often accompanies them. Others suggested they now have little interest in playing the game since random rewards are being removed. (I think some of these people need to stop and think if they really like Brawl Stars or just like pulling a virtual lever on a slot machine…) We saw something similar to this happen with Overwatch 2’s release, where some players were angry at the removal of loot boxes and demanded they be returned to the game. And while I agree that progression in Overwatch 2 sucks at the moment, I’d rather Blizzard figure out a way to fix that doesn’t involve bringing back loot boxes, even if it did give you a lot of free ones before.

The reality is that as games continue to become more and more popular, more countries will begin investigating the industry and how it makes money. And loot boxes are likely never to return in vogue as long as so many governments are leading crusades to regulate or outlaw them.

Zack Zwiezen

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December 13, 2022
Overwatch 2’s New Support Hero Can Block Headshots By…Looking Up

This left arm of mine? Yeah, it’s indestructible.
Screenshot: Blizzard

Overwatch 2 continues to incur issue after issue, with the latest problem leaving the icy damage dealer Mei totally unplayable due to a “critical issue” with her Ice Wall ability. Well, Blizzard may also want to investigate the hero shooter’s newest support character, Kiriko, as it appears she can block headshot damage by simply [checks notes] staring up at the sky.

Kiriko is a kunai-wielding ninja healer who leaked at the beginning of September. Previously locked behind Overwatch 2‘s battle pass, Blizzard has since opted to give the kunoichi away for free following some rather uproarious criticism of the developer’s initial decision. Though she’s a pretty squishy hero, with only 200 health points, she can deal some solid damage and has a kit perfectly suited to buffing her teammates. In other words, she isn’t as passive a healer as, say, Baptiste or Mercy, but you probably don’t want her charging the enemy frontline like Brigitte or Zenyatta either. However, that might change considering an exploit discovered by Twitch streamer Flats.

A partner of the Overwatch League’s Florida Mayhem, Flats tweeted a video on November 15 of Kiriko blocking headshot damage with her arm by looking up at the sun. Flats shot at an opposing Kiriko a few times with Widowmaker, only for the bullets to merely graze the ninja’s seemingly indestructible arm, allowing her to immediately heal back up. Flats eventually murked Kiriko with a single headshot, but only after positioning himself at just the right angle, saying you “have to get behind” Kiriko to “shoot the back of her head.” Who knew that staring up at the sky could save you from death?

What’s appears to be happening here is that, when she looks up, Kiriko’s arm gets in the way of her dome’s hitbox, impacting the damage she takes from headshots. In response to Flat’s tweet, one Twitter user noted that Mercy was able to do the same thing, but only when casting her Resurrect ultimate ability, which sees her raise her arm in the air to revive a dead teammate.

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Kotaku has reached out to Blizzard and Flats for comment.

Blizzard, which has a storied history of abuse and harassment, has been working to get Overwatch 2 into a more stable and balanced state since the game launched on October 4. This includes patches to nerf heroes such as Genji and benching characters to remove exploits and fix other issues (as we’ve seen with Mei, who should return to the hero shooter on November 17). During the Overwatch League grand finals, which were held earlier this month, the studio revealed the new tank hero Ramattra, who will be locked behind the game’s battle pass. It sucks, but I guess we’d better get used to it.

Levi Winslow

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November 16, 2022
Overwatch 2 Halloween Twitch Drops: How To Grab A Winston Werewolf Skin (And More)

Image: Blizzard / Kotaku

It’s time for more Overwatch 2 Twitch drops! This time it’s in celebration of the spooky season. Twitch viewers will have a chance at earning two cosmetics starting October 25, plus a couple others later in November. As with all Twitch drops, you’ll need to link your Battle.net account to your Twitch account, plus a few other important details. So let’s go over it.

When are the Overwatch 2 Halloween Twitch Drops?

According to Blizzard’s blog covering the details, the Halloween-themed Overwatch 2 Twitch drops start on October 25 at 2 p.m. ET through to November 6 at 2 p.m.

After the candy corn season is behind us, another Twitch drop with cosmetics for Reinhardt and Brigitte will start on November 15 at 2 p.m. ET through to November 30 at 2 p.m.

How to get Werewolf Winston Legendary Skin

As is customary with Twitch drops, you’ll need to log some hours watching Overwatch 2. But it doesn’t need to be all at once or the same channel. You’re free to check out different channels at different times to earn progress toward your drops.

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To start, you’ll need to watch two hours of Overwatch 2 on Twitch for the Werewolf spray. Then, watch an additional four hours (six total) for the Werewolf Winston Legendary skin. You can watch any channel in the Overwatch 2 category on Twitch.

Past experience has told us it pays to be sure a streamer is offering drops. Any channel in the game’s category should qualify, but double-check the title of the stream as many streamers include “Twitch drops” or “drops enabled” (or similar language) to indicate their channel is participating. There may also be a bot in the streamer’s chat indicating that drops are enabled. Or, you could always ask in the chat.

You must link your Battle.net and Twitch accounts. Even if you’ve done it before and have participated in previous Twitch drops, you don’t want to log half-a-dozen hours of Overwatch viewing for nothing. Visit the connections page on your Battle.net account and follow the link to connect your Twitch account. Follow all the instructions on Twitch’s side and you’ll be set.

If you’ve done it right, it should look something like this (with your Twitch avatar and username):

Screenshot: Blizzard / Kotaku

Watching Twitch on game consoles and smart TV apps DO NOT count. You must watch Twitch on a computer’s web browser or the Android/iOS Twitch app to get your drops!

I watched everything. Where’s my stuff?

In-game rewards from Twitch drops don’t appear in your game automatically. Once you’ve cleared the necessary watch-time, head on over to the Drops Inventory menu on Twitch to claim your reward(s). Claimed drops will expire after 14 days if your Battle.net account isn’t linked. Claimed items can also take up to 24 hours to appear in your game, so practice a little bit of patience.

How do I enable drops on my stream?

If you stream and want to make sure viewers can participate, a couple of clicks will enable drops on your channel. To make sure your stream will deal out Overwatch 2 Twitch drops, head on over to your “Creator Dashboard.” Under “Viewer Rewards” you’ll see “Drops.” On that page, you’ll click the slider next to “Enable Drops” so it has a purple check mark and you’re good to go!

Screenshot: Twitch / Kotaku

How to claim Reinhardt and Brigitte Twitch Drops

After November 6, you’ll have another opportunity to earn some Twitch Drop-exclusive cosmetics. This time, you can grab the Reinhardt Mug Souvenir after watching two-hours worth of Overwatch 2 on Twitch. Following that, you can earn the Brigitte Kitten Weapon Charm after three additional (five total) hours.

Image: Blizzard

As mentioned above, these drops will be available from November 15 at 12 p.m. ET through to November 30 at 2 p.m.

How do I get my teammates to play support?

I hear you loud and clear. Sadly, I’ve no screenshots or time slots to share for that problem. But if you’re new to Overwatch 2 and are looking for some basic tips to get started, check out our beginner’s guide. And if you’re looking to knock out your timed season challenges, we’ve broken those down so you can get to grinding.

Claire Jackson

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October 25, 2022