[2021] Simple Explanation of Why Pros Are Testing Out OW2 Tomorrow

Hey folks,

Since we’re talking about feedback, and why we would have OWL pros playing the game, this is an area where I can speak as a CM first, rather than as a proxy for Team 4.

Every designer I’ve worked with has understood that any player feedback (whether Bronze, Grand Master, or professional) is laced with personal biases and assumptions. Game designers are like artists in many ways: both disciplines take in feedback from many diverse sources, and apply that feedback with a central vision guiding their decision making.

A large part of what community managers do is to try to remove the personal biases from player feedback, and then communicate what’s the root cause of player friction to designers. The designers have an understanding of how that feedback fits into the bigger picture, and have analytical tools that they can use to evaluate what’s reported via community sentiment. Most importantly, according to Lead Hero Designer, Geoff Goodman,

Geoff: It’s part of our job to respect the context of the feedback.

Your concerns about player biases are completely understandable. We agree, and it’s something we always account for, even when we’re providing feedback on our internal playtests.

Andy, on the discussion of feedback. Can you say if it is still the philosophy of the dev team that they take into account these three factors when determine balance changes overall:

• Player feedback across all ranks
• Statistical performance of heroes at pro level and grandmaster play
• Developer team insights

I know this was something former Game Director Jeff Kaplan discussed at length on the old forums. (I really need to finish the old forum archives…)

Can confirm.

Geoff: Add stats to that list as well (sic; metrics, analytics, etc…)

Thank you very much!

In my personal experience, the answer is “it depends”.

I’ll fall back on what I said about having an understanding of the bigger picture. Because live operations are very dynamic in nature, feedback can be weighted differently in different scenarios.

Recall is basically CTRL Z tho