Blizzard's well aware of your Overwatch competitive mode concerns and plan to address many of them.
In a recent interview with IGN, Overwatch's principal designer Scott Mercer spoke at length about the current state of the game's competitive mode and what Blizzard has planned for competitive players moving forward.
Before getting into that, Mercer took a moment to explain the design logic behind Overwatch's newest character, Ana.
Mercer noted that Ana is intended to provide support players with a character that requires a bit higher of a skill cap. Blizzard hopes that her unique long-range healing abilities will encourage players with precision aiming to explore the potential of this healing character. However, Mercer clarified that Ana is not intended to become a more powerful sniper than Widowmaker or Hanzo. Additionally, the developers discovered that Lucio and Mercy tend to be the most played support characters largely because of the strength of their ultimates. This is why Ana has such a potentially potent ultimate ability and why Zenyatta's ultimate is being buffed in the next patch.
Speaking of that patch, Mercer commented on the status of it by stating that its release date "hopefully will be soon." This patch is currently live on the game's Public Test Realm, and a full breakdown of its alterations can be found here.
Regarding Overwatch's competitive mode, it's clear that Blizzard is focused on addressing some of its most notable flaws in future seasons. This is particularly true of the competitive matchmaking, which some worry may not be able to accurately group players of various ranks that are joining into a game as a group.
Mercer addressed that concern by stating that Blizzard is working on tweaking their formula, which tries to form a rank average based on more than just the ranks numbers themselves. Though he admits that it is still a work in progress, Blizzard is hopeful that they will find a way to accurately place groups with disparaging ranks into appropriate matches.
As for whether or not Blizzard intends to make unique updates to Overwatch's Quick Play and Competitive modes (such as the recent announcement that competitive will no longer allow for multiple heroes to be selected), Mercer noted that it's not likely that heroes will be adjusted based on the game mode, but it's quite possible that unique map and gameplay tweaks will occur.
Concerning competitive mode's highly controversial sudden death mode, Mercer clarified that Blizzard implemented it based on the belief that nobody wanted to end a game in a tie, but are testing out several alternatives to the current coin flip method of determining roles during tie-breakers. Though they do not have a specific replacement available at this time, the goal is to implement something that will lead to the most dramatic conclusions possible in the hopes that Overwatch will continue to grow as an e-sport.
Finally, Mercer revealed that Blizzard is currently testing "several" new maps and heroes that are currently at various design stages. He mentioned that the team is not willing to commit to a regular release schedule, but rather intends to implement new content into Overwatch when it makes sense to do so and to "release heroes at a rate where it keeps people interested in the game."
Stay tuned for more Overwatch updates as they become available.
