[2021] Update about the 10/21/2021 Experimental Card

Hi folks,

Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences with the recent Experimental Card. Your constructive feedback was helpful in communicating concerns to the Hero Balance and Design folks. We’re going to take that feedback, process it, and will try out some additional changes in a future update.

In the interest of transparency, below you’ll find the topline executive summary that we sent to both the Hero Balance and Design team, and Team 4 leadership (along with a much more detailed report that they can dig into for additional details). Please note: we’re sharing this summary as it was presented to T4, which removes hyperbole and personal biases as much as possible

• Feedback from Tank players has been highly critical of this Experimental Card. General sentiment is that the increase in damage for Torb, Cassidy, and especially Junkrat are highly detrimental to their play experience with some pointing to this as further evidence of tanks being low in priority for the dev team.
• There is broad consensus among early feedback that the buffs to Junkrat are too strong in this Experimental card. Experienced Junkrat players have stated that “we significantly lowered his skill ceiling, making him more rewarding to Less-experienced players."
• Multiple forum threads and various subreddit posts mention that Cassidy feels too strong now than he can use Combat Roll to evade abilities like Doomfist’s Upcut and Wrecking Ball’s Piledriver.
• Early general feedback around the Moira Biotic Orb change is positive, with some minor concern over loss of skill-expression due to the decreased velocity of the Orb speed.
• The community team has noticed a trend of confusion as to the purpose of the Experimental Card. We will be looking for opportunities to clarify the purpose of ExC’s with the broader community, with a goal of creating a clear understanding among players.

Your continued constructive conversation continues to be the fuel that drives these reports. Thanks for participating in the various discussions last week.

Do I need to?

I believe that most players are rational when you get them in a 1:1 conversation and don’t really believe that game developers for a franchise like Overwatch would actually play favorites.

Balance changes over time can influence that perception, and to some players be demonstrable proof, however I think that we all (deep down) understand that balance and design requires a holistic view of the game that takes the bigger picture into account.

While we rarely will quote comments that include hyperbole or obvious emotional investment, we do like to make sure that we are conveying both sentiment and emotion, albeit in a more unbiased way.

It’s beneficial to be a perpetual student when you’re a CM. I am always reading new studies, new whitepapers, and listening to experts in fields like behavioral psychology and sociology. Understanding what motivates players beyond what we see on the surface is key to being effective facillitators of conversation. Plus it’s heck of interesting.

I’m somewhat familiar with Vroom-Yetton (Jago). Like many leadership philosophies, it lends itself well to community management.