I am glad to see that Hero Pools will be tested in the PTR prior to the start of Season 21.

Hey everyone, Zach and I have been hard at work on several new Workshop features for 1.45. Our focus for this patch has been quality-of-life features for creators as well as performance improvements. Many of these changes are based on user feedback, so keep those suggestions coming!

These Workshop changes are active right now on the 1.45 Public Test Realm (PTR). Because of several optimizations to the core Workshop execution engine, we’re particularly interested in cases where existing Workshop creations work differently (or not at all) in 1.45. For that reason, we encourage creators and players of Workshop modes to test as many existing game modes as possible on the PTR . Existing Workshop codes were copied from the live game to PTR this morning. Please let us know if there is anything we need to fix! The sooner you let us know, the more likely that we’ll be able to fix any bugs before 1.45 is released.

Of course, we’ve added a lot more than optimizat...

Overwatch PTR Patch Notes – February 4, 2020

A new Overwatch patch is in development and now available for testing! To share your feedback or report any issues, please post in the PTR Feedback or PTR Bug Report forums.

Please note that the below patch notes only include changes currently available for testing on the PTR. While many of these changes may also be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in a future patch, the PTR is PC-only an...

It’s both. For PvE we add a full story arc told through story missions (even though it’s a linear story I am reluctant to all it a campaign because it’s co-op, not single player). We’ll also have Hero Missions (which are highly replayable PvE backed by a progression system). The closest analogy (although neither is quite accurate) is Adventure mode in Diablo III or World Quests in WoW (again, not a great analogy but indicative of the level of replay we’re hoping for).

For PvP we’re adding a completely new pool of PvP maps including a new game mode call...

Boba milk tea. It is his favorite.

going to go get some tea now. thanks for all of the great thoughts and thoughtful questions.

we’ll make changes as needed.

thanks again! <3

your feedback…

these are separate things that will not affect each other.

we’ve considered having the system only apply to players above a certain rank (diamond? masters?). it’s definitely on our minds.

totally. we’re so excited for this. we’ve wanted this for so long. it was a ton of work but it’s going to be really cool. plus i am super excited to get console players involved with testing changes (right now they cannot play the PTR)

By the ways, to make it look like you typed less than 20 characters follow this format (note the HTML comment tag just below the word), but technically you still have to type 20 characters if you think about it:

Word

1. hammond
2. mei
3. tracer

this is a very hard problem to solve but we have some ideas. any solution is more long term, though. possibly OW2 or later. sorry i know that’s not the answer you wanted but it’s actually very complicated with the way consoles work and the rules regarding account creation.

we’ll still use the PTR for major patches and major changes. for example, if we were testing a new hero or map, that would be on the PTR and not in the Experimental Card.

the experimental card uses a different data set and was engineered by people far smarter than i am. it’s going to work and be magic and nothing could possibly go wrong… right? =]

not in this version. interesting idea though.

you know that i can’t ><

ooooh sounds like fun… we should let you all try, huh?

it’s curated by us. so it will be a combination of targeting metas that players are being vocally negative about (recent examples: double barrier, goats) and slightly encouraging other playstyles (i.e. “more mobile” comps might be fun for a week…)

but i am sure we’ll refine our approach over time.

Jeff, with the implementation of hero pools, I fear this may have some amplified effect toward disruptive behavior where players may leave Competitive matches deliberately especially if they feel they can’t pick the heroes they want that they think gives them the best chance to win. So I have two questions:

1. Will the hero pool be displayed upfront each week (like how there is a pop-up detailing the season when a new Competitive Season starts) and players can check it before they queue?

2. Will there be any further plans to help deter bad leaver behavior in Overwatch?

For example, there was a game I played last night where it was very likely one of my opponents left due to rage quitting leaving an easy and unsatisfactory win for my team. I feel there still can be some stronger deterrents to bad leaver behavior (from all game modes) and discourage players from playing Competitive with technical issues.

As one of the forum MVPs, ...

we would never limit the pool to just one tank. you’ll never be forced to play a single tank, such as D.va as described above… if you love playing all the other tanks, you’ll be fine.