Blizzard Makes 'Overwatch' Basketball More Satisfying To Score With Confetti - Finally!

It seems everything with Overwatch has been getting more competitive lately. Thanks to a basic effect that rewards shots made in a basketball hoop, Overwatch's spawn room has become more challenging.

It's quite unclear when it happened, but Blizzard has sneaked in a new confetti animation for the basketball goal in spawn. For those skilled or lucky enough to sink a shot, the hoop will spew a flurry of confetti and buzzer, technically a horn will sound just seconds after the ball goes in — no word on where that shot clock is or what produces the confetti.

Here's what it looked like when a shot went in back in the old days:

And here's a look at what happens now when a shot goes in, though the more skilled players out there have probably seen this countless times, right?

The difficulty of the shot may restrict just how far players try to take this novelty, but then again, they did come up with how to set up and play badminton within the game.

As cute as the confetti and fanfare are, the real catalyst for competition that Overwatch players have been waiting for is the reintroduction of Competitive Mode. On June 28, Blizzard finally released competitive play for PC and promised to follow that up with releases for consoles.

Competitive mode was meant for those who want more of a challenge than what's typically offered through Weekly Brawl and Quick Play. As such, players will have to make sure they've covered the game's basics before jumping into ranked play.

So players will have to hit level 25 before they can begin to take part in ranked matches. After getting up to level 25, they will find that the option for Competitive Play has been added to the Play menu — players can squad up before they head in or join up with a company of strangers.

Even after earning the right to play ranked matches, players will need to play 10 rounds in order to gain a skill rating. Skill ratings, valued from one to 100, will appear at the start of each match.

"As you compete, your rating will increase or decrease with each win or loss based on a number of factors, including your own performance and the skill of the other players in the match," said Blizzard.