Earlier this week, Blizzard announced that it would be adding new incentives and rewards to Overwatch 2's comeptitive play. Now that the update is finally live, players will be able to spend this weekend earning "drive points" and climbing through the checkpoints.
Players can earn drive points during competitive drives, which are special events that'll mostly occur at the end of a season. "Each time you win a match you’ll earn a drive score that is 10 times the total Skill Rank percentage gained from that match," an Overwatch 2 blog post explains. "For example, if you earn 21% toward your next tier and division, then you’ll gain 210 drive points. Losing a match results in a having your drive score reduced five times the total Skill Rank percentage deduction, or half as much as a win gains. So, losing a match that costs you 19% in your competitive rank progress will deduct 95 drive points."
But don't worry, there's a sort of safety blanket to stop you from bombing out in competitive play and losing all your hard-earned drive points (although the same can't be said for your MMR). "Losing matches will cause you to lose a small amount of drive progress,” but “reaching each checkpoint guarantees your progress and rewards," according to the blog post. So, as long as you hit a checkpoint you'll at least be able to keep some progress.
As a reward for climbing through each checkpoint, you'll get various prizes at six different stages. These will either be competitive points, which you can put towards a new Golden or Jade gun, or it'll be a signature, which is a new feature in Overwatch 2 that'll let you change how your battletag looks in-game.
I'm not massively obsessed with the signatures right now, as the current set available to grab over the weekend aren't really my style. But Overwatch 2 has recently come out with some outstanding new Mythic skins like the Ana Weapon Skin or Reaper's new Anubis-themed skin, so I'm excited to see what the team can do in the future.
The checkpoints and rewards for each are as follows:
- Tier 1: 300 drive points - 500 competitive points.
- Tier 2: 700 drive points - signature.
- Tier 3: 1200 drive points - 1000 competitive points.
- Tier 4: 1700 drive points - advanced signature.
- Tier 5: 2200 drive points - 1500 competitive points.
- Tier 6: 2700 drive points - elite signature.
Blizzard has historically had a hard time incentivising players to jump into competitive play toward the end of a season. Back when competitive ranks would reset every season, most players would simply grind to the rank they wanted and then wouldn't touch it for fear of losing and going down ranks. While competitive resets aren't as common as they once were, most players tend to sit out the last weekend of a season. I always find it's when the silliest of games happen as everyone is desperate to uprank or get to the end of the battle pass, so you tend to get people who just want to play as many matches as possible rather than actually win them. But these competitive drives may well encourage players to put some thought into the end-of-season games or at least give them a nudge in the right direction.
