[2023] Overwatch 2 | One-Punch Man Dev Chat | Overwatch Dev Tracker

Transcript (by Youtube)

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561s	thank you
563s	hey everyone welcome to the OverWatch 2
566s	Dev chat we have a stacked lineup of
569s	developers and Leadership from Team Four
571s	here to talk about us about overwatch's
573s	first anime collaboration ever one punch
576s	man
577s	I'm Jody from the OverWatch team and I'm
579s	joined by my epic host Duo cusoe and
582s	game director Aaron would y'all like to
584s	introduce yourselves
586s	yeah sure uh thank you so much Jody I am
589s	so thrilled to be here with you today
591s	and pick the developer's brain about
593s	this super cool collaboration which uh
596s	that that one took me by surprise it's
598s	not gonna lie when I started popping up
600s	on my time and I was like excuse me what
602s	now yeah so I can't wait to dig into
604s	this
605s	yeah I can't wait to also this is a
608s	pretty exciting moment to talk about
610s	it's like a pretty exciting moment for
612s	the team to be able to work with one
614s	punch man
615s	that's awesome
619s	the OverWatch one punch man
621s	collaboration uh so you can jump into
623s	the game right now and experience it and
626s	you know I think our trailer really said
628s	it best so in case you missed the
631s	YouTube Premiere let's have a look at
633s	the OverWatch one punch Man trailer
644s	thank you
652s	[Music]
661s	ready for a knockouts
680s	la la
696s	now that was a serious punch
699s	well that was great and I'm so excited
702s	to kick off the discussion and to dive
704s	in a little deeper uh to where this
707s	collaboration originated so Erin can you
710s	walk us through kind of the original
712s	idea for this collaboration with one
714s	punch yeah I'd love to I mean
718s	so the the whole team the OverWatch team
720s	we we love our game we we love the
723s	universe of OverWatch and and telling
725s	the stories and showing the
727s	personalities of the the different
728s	Heroes that we have and the locations
730s	that you go to but the OverWatch team
733s	doesn't just love OverWatch where where
735s	Geeks at heart there's all sorts of
737s	other fictional worlds that we've fallen
740s	in love with and one punch man it's at
742s	the top of the the list for us and so we
746s	we want to be able to celebrate other
749s	other universes and other characters in
752s	other worlds and for us like one of the
755s	best ways to do that is to be able to
757s	bring them in to our own world and and
761s	um play with the characters that we love
764s	from from um from one punch man
767s	um and the the idea is when we started
769s	talking about doing other collaborations
771s	with um with other fictional universes
774s	and we kind of started zeroing on on
777s	anime one punch man and was just at the
779s	top of the list because it's it's
782s	um
782s	it's so endearing to watch and the
785s	characters feel like they're they're
788s	their their own version of sort of
789s	Larger than Life real characters just
791s	like we have in OverWatch so it's just
793s	like a really great natural fit for us
796s	I I'd love to know though where this
799s	kind of shift in The Stance is coming
801s	from because historically uh the over
803s	team was more or less I don't want to
805s	say against bringing in other characters
807s	or other universes but there's
808s	definitely been pushback on that why why
810s	does something change
812s	yeah there there has been a change it
815s	hasn't been overnight it's been it's
817s	been a gradual change for the team and
820s	when when we first released OverWatch we
822s	wanted to be very protective of our
824s	heroes and our and our universe and we
827s	wanted to keep
829s	um we wanted to give it as much space as
831s	possible so that people could really
833s	understand what our world was like this
836s	like amazing inspirational near future
840s	Earth with all these really cool heroes
842s	in it we wanted people to understand who
844s	all those Heroes were but over time we
847s	started loosening that even the Skins we
849s	started making for those Heroes we
851s	started pushing them more we eventually
854s	started doing skins of other blizzard
859s	um um universes we even did a Bastion
861s	skin a Lego Bastion skin at one point so
865s	we started opening up once we felt like
868s	the world of OverWatch was established
870s	enough and then if you if you look at
873s	the gaming landscape there's there's a
875s	lot of collaborations happening out
877s	there and it was really interesting for
880s	us to watch some of that happening
883s	because it let us analyze what we felt
887s	comfortable with and what we wouldn't
888s	feel comfortable with that other games
890s	were doing so there was this great
892s	lesson there was there is collabs out
895s	there that that I could get really
896s	excited about in other games and we
898s	started to look at that and say like hey
900s	we want some of that in OverWatch also
902s	we want people to be able to look at our
904s	game and see other really cool things in
907s	it and be able to relate to those and
909s	celebrate celebrate those other
911s	universes yeah I mean I think the
914s	reaction from the community speaks
916s	volumes of just how excited everyone was
918s	to see one punch man popping off in
921s	OverWatch uh so I'm wondering what that
923s	means for one punchman now what does it
925s	mean for one punishment to exist in the
928s	OverWatch Universe yeah okay so I love
931s	one punch man watch the series like
933s	multiple times and so like first and
936s	foremost we just want to like celebrate
938s	something that we love inside of our
941s	game you know it's just like it's just
943s	like pretty amazing the characters in
945s	that world that they've developed are
947s	are pretty amazing
949s	um and so so to do it we we have like
952s	our own take on what one punch man looks
955s	like inside of OverWatch and it's this
957s	take these values that we have will
960s	probably bring these forward into the
962s	future as we start looking at other
965s	collaborations that that we could be
966s	doing but first and foremost is is
969s	OverWatch it's a it's a pretty
971s	competitive very fast-paced game and so
974s	at any moment you need to be able to
977s	look at look at
979s	um the screen in front of you and be
982s	able to tell in a split second what your
985s	team is doing what the enemy team is
987s	doing who they're composed of and all of
990s	the the silver wet the animation the VFX
994s	the audio effects of all of our heroes
996s	are a huge part in players being able to
1000s	translate that visual information so
1003s	even though we are dressing up
1006s	um doomfist let's say as saitama we want
1009s	people playing the game to be able to
1012s	instantly say that's doomfist over there
1014s	so it it's still using doomfist voice
1018s	actor it's still using
1020s	um the same visual effects or mostly the
1022s	same visual effects but everyone will be
1024s	able to look at it and be like this is
1026s	doomfist running around and on top of
1029s	that we we still think of the OverWatch
1032s	universe as a cohesive space it it has
1035s	its its own history its own lower its
1039s	own characters and we want to preserve
1041s	that as much as we can so as we bring
1044s	the one punch Man characters into
1047s	OverWatch
1048s	um we're doing it almost as as costumes
1052s	that it really are just skins for the
1055s	heroes that we have but at the end of
1057s	the day we want we want to be able to
1059s	represent and celebrate the characters
1062s	from one punch man but not to replace
1065s	our own
1067s	yeah absolutely it's it's kind of like
1069s	when we say like doomfist doomfist is a
1072s	fan of one punch man he's a fan of
1074s	saitama and US putting that in the game
1076s	is a reflection of us and like the
1079s	OverWatch team like we're really big
1081s	fans of one punch as well
1083s	yeah you never suspect that doomfist
1086s	would be such a fan of such a quirky
1088s	character yeah
1091s	this is really exciting though and you
1094s	know what what does this really mean for
1096s	OverWatch and like for the possibility
1099s	of baby future collaborations oh okay
1103s	um so I mean when we when we launched
1106s	OverWatch 2 and we put as much effort as
1110s	we could into supporting the game we've
1112s	talked a lot about how we've grown the
1114s	team a lot and reorganized the team and
1116s	we have this this focus of trying to
1120s	always be evolving the game to best suit
1123s	like the needs and desires of the people
1125s	playing it we we just want to always be
1128s	making more OverWatch for people and and
1131s	for people to see what we're coming out
1132s	with and to be excited for it um that's
1136s	what this the one punch man
1138s	collaboration is about and and we can
1140s	see
1141s	um online that so far it feels like
1143s	people have had like a really positive
1146s	reaction to it and they're really
1148s	excited about what we're doing and we
1149s	even see them put putting out ideas of
1153s	other collaborations we can do and
1154s	matching Our Heroes up to characters and
1156s	other universes and so I think if
1159s	something like this goes well it will
1161s	just give us the confidence that this is
1163s	what players want from us and this is
1165s	the sort of thing that we ought to we
1167s	ought to keep doing I'm not sure if
1169s	we'll ever get to the point where this
1170s	is like something we do every single
1173s	season we still want
1175s	um we still want to push the the
1178s	narrative in the world of OverWatch
1180s	forward all on its own but this this
1182s	could become a regular part of OverWatch
1186s	in the future
1188s	I mean I wouldn't want that to happen
1190s	every season yeah like it should be a
1192s	special treat we're getting with it I
1195s	like the way you put that there you go
1196s	that's that's going to go into the
1198s	values it's a special perfect
1201s	it's a it's a really cool way to show
1203s	that like we're fans of the things that
1205s	our community are fans of and you know
1208s	we like to geek out over things too and
1211s	one punch is really special
1213s	relatable we loved it
1217s	uh I'm wondering Erin for you or or your
1220s	team was there like a really big fan boy
1222s	or
1223s	fangirlman stared at Cola
1226s	okay so
1228s	um I love the show there's a lot of
1230s	people on the team that love the show
1231s	and as we started talking about what it
1234s	would mean to translate the show into
1237s	OverWatch we had multiple brainstorming
1239s	sessions over it and so that's like one
1242s	of the funnest parts of this is just
1244s	talking about
1246s	um what what different characters we
1248s	could use you know like tornado kariko
1251s	like all of that stuff is really fun but
1254s	there are so many different things we
1255s	talked about that didn't make it you
1258s	know like hey are we gonna be able to
1259s	use Garros or sea king or is there some
1262s	weird like censored version of like Puri
1265s	Puri Reinhardt out there you know it's
1267s	just like crazy stuff that we gotta that
1270s	we gotta kind of like talk about and
1272s	have fun with but um I think that once
1274s	we started actually implementing a lot
1277s	of this stuff there was there's two
1278s	moments the the first was when they
1281s	started getting the lobby together of
1283s	just that sort of end joke of training
1287s	with Hunter push-ups 100 squats you know
1289s	the 10 kilometer run like it's a pretty
1292s	amazing Lobby we've never really had
1293s	something like that before but my
1296s	favorite thing was the first time I saw
1298s	the Justice crash highlight intro it's
1301s	like such an amazing highlight intro and
1304s	the funny thing is earlier in season
1306s	three we released hanzo's Cupid kiss
1309s	highlight intro which I just thought we
1311s	would never be able to top right like
1314s	that that is like s tier highlight intro
1316s	it's so cool and then Justice crash
1319s	comes along and it's like oh my God
1320s	which one of these is better than the
1322s	other so yeah it's just been fun like
1325s	all the way around working on it
1328s	it's so good soldier is movement writer
1330s	makes me so happy like those those two
1332s	are actually a match made in heaven
1335s	yeah I love it yeah
1338s	um not to speak about the balance of
1341s	soldier 76 or anything like that you
1344s	know maybe they're not a match made in
1346s	heaven on that front but yeah maybe not
1348s	so for the next balance practice all
1351s	abilities
1355s	exactly his new uh alternate ability is
1359s	like bloody nose or something like that
1361s	so there's a guy who helps out on the
1364s	sidelines Ren that's it I actually love
1367s	Moomin writer he okay this is just my
1369s	own take but he feels like the real hero
1372s	of that show so like like saitama has
1374s	like these massive amazing abilities a
1378s	movement Rider doesn't really have any
1379s	but he's still like first on the scene
1382s	he's always responding he's like the
1384s	person that's really putting their life
1386s	on the line to help other people even in
1388s	like the face of like certain
1391s	uh defeat you know yeah no he's showing
1395s	up with courage uh so I I respect that
1398s	not necessarily with any abilities or
1400s	skills which that's unfortunate but a
1403s	forever he's answering the call the
1406s	world could always use more hero it
1408s	really is I love that
1411s	I'm so happy that we get to share this
1414s	with players now and you know it was
1416s	really incredible watching everything uh
1419s	go from like that idea the brainstorming
1422s	sessions and like becoming a reality and
1424s	finally making it to the live game so
1426s	everyone
1428s	we're super amped we're super amph this
1430s	is finally in game this collaboration's
1432s	finally live so yep I I am too like
1435s	cannot wait for to see people's
1437s	reactions to all the things that we have
1439s	in the game it's really exciting time
1441s	for us
1442s	absolutely well thank you Aaron thank
1445s	you so much for joining us and giving us
1446s	more of an insight into the
1448s	collaboration
1449s	um yeah this is a legendary moment for
1452s	gym for one punch so we we really
1454s	appreciate you being here to answer our
1455s	questions yeah of course thank you for
1457s	having me it was great yeah awesome
1459s	thanks Aaron
1461s	bye
1464s	Zoe and I are joined but two of my
1466s	incredible teammates to dive a little
1468s	deeper into the development process of
1470s	the one punch man collaboration so I'd
1473s	love for you guys to introduce to
1475s	yourselves and kind of give us a little
1476s	insight onto your role in on this team
1479s	uh do you mind kicking us off Dion yeah
1482s	hey I'm Dion Rogers I'm the art director
1484s	for OverWatch 2. uh my name is rakan
1486s	kamash I'm a senior character artist on
1488s	the OverWatch team I'm responsible for
1489s	creating characters and skins that you
1491s	guys see in the game awesome
1493s	I'm so excited to be able to pick both
1496s	of your brains today about this
1498s	particular and collaboration so I want
1500s	to run back to the very beginning of it
1502s	and I want to hear from you why did we
1506s	end up with those specific characters
1508s	why those specific characters not just
1510s	from one punchman but also from the
1512s	OverWatch universe
1514s	yeah when we first started to think
1516s	about okay we're ready to do a
1518s	collaboration with an uh an anime one
1521s	punch man was a pretty big one for the
1524s	team everyone was super excited and so
1527s	as we were announcing it that's why
1528s	Recon was just like literally like as we
1530s	were telling the team this is what we're
1531s	gonna do and and it's a go Recon started
1534s	blocking out it was like crazy he's just
1537s	like he grabbed defense started he was
1539s	posting little images on our little
1541s	slack Channel and we're just like whoa
1543s	that actually looks pretty cool right
1546s	so Doom was really the starting point
1547s	like saitama was our yes right
1550s	and every time feel free to jump in if
1553s	there yeah I mean going back to that
1555s	meeting I remember you know sitting in
1556s	like every day meeting it's all going
1558s	good and then boom one punch man collab
1560s	like hold up wait a minute what is this
1562s	I did I saw the concept shout out to
1565s	kitchen for the awesome concept I was
1567s	like I need I need to get on this like I
1569s	need to work on it so I hit up my
1571s	producer I'm like I don't know who's
1572s	working on this I don't know if it's
1573s	already a sign I need it needs to be
1575s	mine I'm a huge fan of you know one
1577s	punch man and yeah I stopped working on
1579s	the blackout like Dion said just took it
1582s	from there so it made sense that
1584s	obviously saitama would be doomfist you
1586s	know he's our basically our one punch
1588s	man in our universe and um if you notice
1592s	the heroes
1593s	so we decided you know we learned Aaron
1596s	Keller our game director is a big fan of
1598s	one point so he knew the characters
1600s	really well in a lot of their lore
1602s	and so as the character team and the
1605s	concept artist started to dig in we
1607s	decided that's how we started to develop
1609s	which which characters made sense to be
1611s	who and we'll dig a little bit more into
1613s	doomfist in just a moment but literally
1614s	because Recon started to block out he
1616s	has to station
1617s	but Janelle's being Genji just made
1621s	sense from a silhouette perspective and
1622s	the way the characters look in in their
1624s	combination from the show and then uh
1626s	Moomin Rider 76 it just it was just so
1629s	fun he's a kind of a fun character for
1631s	us already so with Moomin Ryder becoming
1633s	76 was a a pretty awesome clap
1637s	yeah and walk us through some of the the
1640s	concept art or through some of the early
1642s	development stages like you mentioned
1644s	that like Genji and Jenna's they share
1646s	similar Silhouettes like what what what
1649s	does that mean
1651s	so gameplay wise you know OverWatch is a
1654s	very fast-paced game so we're gonna dig
1656s	into uh doomfist here
1658s	so Tama has a cape that's a pretty
1661s	iconic look for this hero in one punch
1663s	man so we needed to add a cape to
1666s	doomfist
1667s	which is a big deal this is changes
1669s	doomfist silhouette significantly and so
1672s	when you play in OverWatch tactically
1674s	you're looking for certain Silhouettes
1675s	we do a lot of work behind the scenes
1677s	when we're developing a hero to they
1680s	have a certain shape a certain size that
1681s	that's eventually becomes recognizable
1683s	to the players you can see the the
1685s	original doomfist that you know the one
1687s	that we already have in the game and the
1688s	first thing like Dion said we need to
1690s	test out the cape so I did a quick block
1693s	out of that model and then I submitted
1694s	to our Tech team that you know what we
1697s	want to test out how how's that is going
1699s	to work with this movement because again
1700s	if you think about doomfist he's not
1702s	like your average character just he
1704s	walks straight or you know he's always
1706s	jumping doing crazy moves so we did this
1708s	uh lockout test and it was successful
1710s	and then you know we got the green light
1712s	to move with the other
1715s	Parts here you can see uh more uh we
1717s	call this a blackout stage because it's
1720s	basically just throwing Big Blocks and
1722s	making sure we we represent the concept
1724s	in early stage to test out for example
1726s	the belt needs to be smaller bigger we
1728s	need to move parts around
1730s	and so this is him going from like
1732s	normal Doom to yeah we're dressing we're
1735s	putting him in the block out for it
1737s	exactly yeah we start to test out in the
1740s	game too as well right now we get this
1742s	block out in game and we get a feel for
1744s	how fighting this hero now yeah feels
1748s	here you can see I'm actually in game
1750s	but again there there isn't much details
1752s	going on just a quick color and the
1754s	model and after you know everybody's
1757s	like he's good to go we moved to the we
1759s	called the high poly stage this is where
1761s	we put all the details like you can see
1763s	all the the pants they got the the seams
1766s	on the sides he got the armor pieces and
1769s	uh after that we go back to uh something
1772s	we call the low poly which is like the
1774s	clean mesh that you guys see in the in
1776s	the engine and here you can see him with
1778s	you know all the textures and the
1780s	lighting uh in the engine
1782s	much of the uh characters which were
1784s	selected from the one punch Universe
1787s	were selected based on their Silhouettes
1789s	matching up with one of the Heroes and
1791s	how much of it was just like well it's a
1793s	favorite of ours so we have to present
1796s	I think a lot of it came from a favorite
1798s	of ours so we we have a pretty varied
1800s	cast of characters so surprisingly a lot
1803s	of people just fit automatically but a
1805s	lot of it is mostly came from the team
1808s	just that's their favorite characters
1809s	from the show
1811s	um and you can see that the characters
1813s	are kind of cosplaying the heroes from
1816s	one punch man it's not saitama's
1819s	literally in the game it's doomfist
1820s	wearing a costume that is uh very
1823s	reflective of saitama he's a big fan
1825s	himself so that's kind of our approach
1827s	for um whenever we do a collab like this
1830s	is that it's our heroes enjoy the
1832s	universe just as much as we do in real
1834s	life and they're kind of cosplaying as
1837s	the heroes from that Universe it's
1838s	actually so funny because if you're not
1840s	thinking about kiriko cosplaying as uh
1842s	tatsumaki tatsumaki being such a ancient
1845s	words kind of character and certainly
1847s	like arrogant kind of edgy person and
1849s	kirika seems so wholesome and sweet so I
1852s	love that she wants to cosplay as is a
1854s	dark one yeah that's right yeah
1857s	I actually want to talk about
1859s	um something that young just mentioned
1860s	is you know our characters are
1862s	cosplaying you know the the one punch
1864s	man right now so uh one of the
1866s	challenges that uh we can run into is uh
1869s	in the original concept that uh we did
1872s	he had a lot of muscles and then if you
1874s	look at you know cytom and the enemy is
1876s	like super simple you know just a yellow
1878s	shirt red gloves that's it like he
1879s	doesn't have much going on so the the
1882s	tricky part was to make sure we add
1884s	enough details so it still looks like
1886s	doomfist but at the same time you know
1888s	you can tell it's aside from us so uh
1890s	one way you know to go around these
1893s	um challenges was like for the the shirt
1895s	for example it's just yellow so we do
1897s	something in our watch where we add
1898s	gradients it's like a cool way of adding
1900s	details without making something too
1902s	noisy and same thing pretty much with
1904s	the gloves and the boots we just added a
1907s	little bit of gradients because again we
1908s	we're trying to make it match the
1910s	concept but at the same time still make
1912s	it look like it's in the OverWatch world
1914s	awesome you kind of went into uh some of
1918s	the challenges for development I'm
1920s	curious like from a design perspective
1921s	what was it like putting like these
1923s	color palettes in game or you know
1926s	creating creating the meshes that you're
1928s	talking about
1929s	I mean it's it it was really awesome
1932s	like to to see that concept and then uh
1934s	you know figure out how how are we gonna
1936s	make it work in our world because you
1937s	know yeah we we don't we want to keep
1940s	you know the IP looking like it is at
1942s	the same time we still want to represent
1944s	OverWatch language in our characters so
1946s	uh we we did a couple of tests we
1948s	changed a couple small parts here and
1950s	there just so it kind of flows better
1952s	and you know it's not as noisy and at
1954s	the same time you look at it like uh
1956s	from this it looks simple just like uh
1958s	cytom is and I know finally seeing this
1961s	in game was a really significant moment
1962s	for our team and like when we're sharing
1965s	that information internally with one
1967s	another like it's very common for a zoom
1971s	call to devolve into a twitch chat very
1973s	quickly with how excited everyone is
1976s	especially when they start hearing like
1978s	that theme music things start coming
1980s	together like at the trailers and you
1982s	know everyone's just completely stoked
1984s	for this
1986s	we had a lot of fun uh because again we
1989s	realized there were so many fans on the
1991s	team that you just never knew until we
1993s	started to talk about this
1995s	um even the lobby we worked on for
1998s	the scene is the one punch challenge
2002s	where he's doing the under squats the
2004s	hundred so that's
2005s	and you literally doomfist does the
2007s	entire exercise if you watch the yeah
2010s	Lobby he will do every all 100 of each
2013s	step and then walk off and do the
2015s	running too but he comes back at the
2018s	time of day change it it just it was so
2019s	fun because at first we had like a
2021s	truncated version of it but we felt
2023s	pretty strongly to just pull this off he
2027s	can actually do the full exercise so
2030s	it's a fun thing if you want to watch
2032s	it's like five minutes long yeah I
2034s	remember you saying the original was
2036s	like 30 seconds and then you're right
2037s	now
2040s	people who are not watching this right
2042s	now who are just sitting in that screen
2045s	trying to figure out if it's the whole
2047s	sequence so some people were 100 just
2049s	like wait it out and see yeah that's
2052s	what we hope and people get the joke
2054s	basically but I think that shows just
2056s	how strong some of the fans on the team
2059s	where the animation team really pushed
2060s	for it actually took a little bit of
2062s	tech adjustment to allow a Lobby to have
2064s	this level of uh kind of uh
2067s	keyframing that lasted so long
2070s	uh because usually our lobbies are
2071s	pretty quick and and they're beautiful
2074s	but quick yeah this one is just awesome
2077s	forever
2079s	watching doofus do this amazing exercise
2082s	that was a pretty awesome challenge in
2084s	real life right it's a lot of people
2086s	used to do this as a
2088s	a great goal of theirs to be able to
2090s	achieve this episode so exercise so
2092s	doomfist to be in one of our strongest
2094s	Heroes he could totally do it not to
2097s	mention everybody on the team that
2098s	worked on this collab had to do that
2100s	workout
2101s	of course it's a rite of passage
2106s	now obviously like from from a viewer's
2109s	perspective like love the anime or the
2111s	manga we see it in one of our favorite
2113s	games that's huge people get so excited
2115s	about collaborations like that what was
2117s	it like for you guys in the team because
2120s	being able to work on something which is
2122s	still within your you know day-to-day
2124s	business it's OverWatch it's what you
2126s	work on yeah but then you get to add
2128s	like something you're a fan of what was
2131s	that like
2133s	uh yeah I feel uh I think both Khan and
2136s	I can answer this but we actually wanted
2139s	to do this for a long time it's just
2141s	finding the right uh group to collab
2144s	with working with Bandai has been super
2146s	fun and we've wanted to figure out what
2149s	it meant for OverWatch to take this step
2151s	it's a pretty big step for us as an IP
2153s	we already have this huge IP with
2155s	amazing heroes in it but we're fans of
2157s	these other groups that have amazing
2159s	Heroes too how do we integrate those
2162s	into our game
2164s	and like to me personally I remember
2166s	when I saw the concept like Dion said I
2168s	I had the blackout ready in no time how
2171s	excited I am and I had other stuff like
2174s	going on I had to finish and I told the
2176s	truth I will make it work you don't
2177s	worry about that yeah
2179s	and everybody on the team was like super
2182s	excited about seeing the concept seeing
2183s	the whole thing you know just in the in
2186s	the engine and the custom stuff that we
2188s	did it it just shows like how everybody
2190s	on the team were like super excited and
2192s	just happy like we're doing this kind of
2193s	collapse now yeah
2196s	and finding one punch as the first one
2198s	was awesome you know
2200s	I like saying that like this was really
2202s	the you know right
2205s	partnership for us in a sense because
2207s	like their their IP and rip really go
2210s	together really well and you know seeing
2213s	Our Heroes come to life as their
2215s	characters uh or like representing their
2218s	characters is really it's really special
2220s	were there any other moments uh like I
2224s	know we've mentioned doomfist and uh
2226s	kind of the blockout for his uh his
2229s	saitama skin but were there any other
2231s	moments with say the other skins genos
2234s	or a tornado kiriko that really stood
2236s	out to you guys
2237s	uh I mean I can talk about uh Janice
2240s	because my friend Val he worked on that
2242s	skin and we were both geeking out the
2244s	whole thing so much just when we saw the
2246s	concept of like I gotta work on this and
2248s	so I gotta work on doomfist and we both
2250s	you know while working we kept sharing
2251s	updates because we were just so happy
2254s	about it and excited this one is
2255s	basically because just how much I get
2257s	excited about these things I decided
2259s	that you know what just showing it in
2261s	the engine is not enough I want to take
2263s	it to the next level and I just throw
2264s	this like cool cinematic rendering of it
2266s	yeah just to show you guys like how
2268s	excited and again while working on this
2270s	we're not sure if we're like able to
2272s	share it or not but to us just how
2275s	excited we get about these things like
2277s	we we try to do extra stuff just to get
2279s	you know the whole team but like super
2281s	excited about it too and hyped yeah I'm
2284s	pretty sure at least 75 of our team has
2286s	that as our background yeah sure it's a
2289s	really popular yeah
2293s	channels is interesting because during
2294s	the concept and phase this is where we
2297s	learned where too much he at one point
2300s	he looked too much like Janos we've lost
2303s	um uh the OverWatch hero and so we
2306s	peeled it back a little just to find The
2308s	Sweet Spot uh before we model we do a
2310s	lot of testing with the just the concept
2312s	the 2D drawing
2314s	to make sure the OverWatch hero remains
2317s	while still celebrating you know the uh
2319s	genos as a character so he was one that
2322s	in some of the concept of faces actually
2324s	was pushed a little too far and then we
2326s	kind of peel them back
2327s	yeah that's that's really interesting
2330s	and I'm I'm kind of curious about kiriko
2333s	and Moomin writer if there were any
2335s	highlights from working on either of
2337s	those Heroes
2338s	um I know for Moomin writer I'm probably
2340s	just as excited for the Highlight intro
2343s	as I am the skin itself
2346s	um it's it's pretty pretty awesome
2349s	yeah Moomin Rider it just makes sense
2352s	because we had this kind of uh
2355s	Sentai skin for 76 already and then the
2358s	character the show is kind of like that
2361s	he's like a play on this category of uh
2363s	entertainment so it just felt even more
2366s	funny that in game we were literally
2368s	taking you know kind of an evolution of
2370s	a model we already had made him look
2372s	like movement and then we even did the
2373s	Highlight Reel with the cool anime lines
2376s	going behind it as he rides it just
2379s	started to you could just see it we the
2382s	whole team was just having fun with this
2383s	one every there was much more we wanted
2386s	to do but obviously time and production
2388s	costs we just had to really focus on the
2391s	the heroes that uh made sense but
2394s	hopefully we do more in the future
2396s	I really love that love that have fun
2398s	with this and and probably
2400s	one of the highlights
2401s	I'm curious
2405s	and Fanboy moments from working on this
2408s	partnership any like uh highlights for
2411s	either of you
2412s	I mean I could say I've watched it again
2414s	like 60 times after like I just had to
2417s	watch it again yeah yeah because while
2419s	watching it I wanted to pick up I don't
2422s	know some some small thing that I can
2423s	put on on the skin that kind of you know
2426s	yeah so I I watched it again again just
2428s	wanted to pick up you know some small
2430s	details here and there that I can add to
2431s	the skin and hopefully like fans will
2434s	pick them up because they're not super
2435s	you know just out there showing but
2437s	they're like hidden so yeah I'm
2439s	interested to see everybody's got a spot
2442s	yeah I I just thought the fact that we
2445s	were doing it in general I again I
2447s	watched this series already but they
2449s	started watching it again and again and
2451s	again
2452s	so it just it felt like
2455s	okay we did find the right
2458s	show to collab with
2460s	absolutely I know that I'm gonna be in
2462s	game looking for those details too uh I
2465s	was new to the series but when I found
2467s	out we were doing this collaboration I
2469s	immediately watched it and like the
2471s	intro song is what grabbed me from then
2474s	I was like okay yeah this is my vibe I'm
2476s	really gonna like this so
2478s	um yeah I'm I'm you know really excited
2480s	this is a game and I'm I know that our
2483s	our community is too well I'm gonna say
2485s	this now and I feel sorry for everybody
2487s	that's going to be in my game I'm really
2489s	bad with doomfist but I will be playing
2491s	doofus because of this skin so just a
2493s	heads up I'm not too bad a doofus I'm
2496s	really excited to pick this game up it's
2499s	so good yeah awesome well this is
2502s	overwatch's you know first major anime
2504s	collaboration and players can jump into
2507s	the game it's live right now uh so
2510s	whether you want to pick up the
2511s	Cosmetics try your hand at doomfist or
2514s	you know count count the Reps and Doom's
2517s	workout
2518s	um jumping game right now and
2521s	uh have a blast
2524s	thank you Dion and thank you Recon for
2526s	joining us and sharing your thoughts and
2528s	experiences you know it's always a joy
2530s	talking to both of you and yeah we
2533s	really appreciate you being here bye
2535s	thank you thank you yeah thank you guys
2538s	thank you bye no we have
2541s	a topic lined up for this next segment
2543s	that's a bit of conversation starter in
2545s	the community but it's also something
2547s	incredibly significant to our team
2550s	we're joined by some really incredible
2552s	folks on Team Four who are going to walk
2554s	us through some of the competitive and
2556s	matchmaking updates that we're going to
2557s	see here in the mid-cycle patch Scott
2560s	would you please kick off intros and
2562s	give us a little overview on your role
2564s	on the team
2565s	sure thing Jody um hi everyone I'm Scott
2567s	Mercer uh I'm the lead meta designer on
2570s	OverWatch 2 and that doesn't mean I'm
2572s	responsible for the hero meta nope
2574s	that's not me not at all different meta
2576s	it's different meta completely uh what I
2579s	do on the team is work with Morgan on
2581s	matchmaking I also work on competitive
2584s	systems player interaction and Trust I
2586s	interact with Esports teams uh and yeah
2589s	I'm really excited to talk uh with
2591s	Morgan today about matchmaking
2593s	um yeah hi I'm Morgan I'm a senior
2595s	engineer on the team four
2598s	um I also mostly focus on matchmaking
2599s	and ranked so I actually work with Scott
2601s	kind of yeah yeah kind of an uncanny
2604s	amount of but yeah that's me
2607s	awesome welcome on in you guys and
2609s	thanks for joining us on this again
2612s	um so Morgan uh to kick us off will you
2615s	kind of give us a recap on the
2618s	matchmaking updates that went in at the
2620s	beginning of season three uh what were
2622s	those updates and kind of what are some
2624s	of the things that were uh seeing in
2626s	them serving so far yeah so um season
2630s	three was really big for matchmaking
2632s	um it was kind of so
2634s	um right after OverWatch 2 launched
2636s	actually we were kind of thinking about
2638s	like what we wanted to prioritize next
2640s	and um kind of the overwhelming thing
2642s	that we wanted to do was
2645s	um what we've called the the roll Delta
2647s	change which is minimizing the roll
2649s	Delta between the two teams and so what
2651s	that means is
2652s	you know um before any of these changes
2655s	went live you know we were pretty
2657s	willing to make a match that could have
2659s	like a diamond level tank against a gold
2661s	level tank say and even if the rest of
2664s	the match was fairly balanced you know
2666s	in terms of like the ratings of of the
2668s	two teams
2669s	that matchup just didn't feel very fun
2672s	and so
2673s	um you know those matches had a 50 win
2676s	rate uh but like it still didn't feel
2679s	like a good match and so
2681s	um we kind of wanted to like
2683s	you know see how how well we could
2686s	minimize the Delta between the rolls and
2688s	so we wanted to do that not just for the
2689s	tanks but for all the roles on the on
2691s	each team
2693s	um and that actually took a really long
2695s	time it was it was definitely the
2697s	largest kind of architectural change
2699s	that we've made to the Matchmaker since
2701s	roll Q even uh back in 2019
2704s	so um so we did that over a few stages
2708s	uh we kind of got like an easy win and I
2711s	think it was like the season two patch
2712s	and then uh since that point we were
2715s	kind of making iterative improvements
2717s	and so season three is kind of the
2718s	culmination of that work where
2721s	um you know we've kind of like fully
2722s	pivoted the the matchmaking architecture
2724s	to be able to kind of like reason about
2728s	um packing players into matches that in
2731s	a way that minimizes this Delta and
2733s	keeps it so that the teams have kind of
2735s	like this balanced role
2737s	um you know this property is kind of
2739s	weird
2740s	um it's not it's it's it's kind of hard
2742s	to like get it for free
2745s	um and so we actually kind of had to
2747s	rethink a lot of the different
2749s	components of the Matchmaker in order to
2752s	to actually solve this problem well not
2754s	just in the normal case but also kind of
2756s	in the worst case be able to do this you
2760s	know kind of in all cases so um so that
2764s	was kind of the big thing that changed
2766s	in season three
2768s	um because of that uh you know there was
2771s	a whole lot of um parts that we expected
2774s	to get worse as a result of that
2778s	um you know kind of like in in
2780s	matchmaking you don't really get
2781s	anything for free so by minimizing the
2784s	roll Delta in these matches we've kind
2786s	of
2786s	um we've slightly impacted like other
2790s	aspects of match quality that we're
2792s	looking at
2794s	um and some of that we kind of expected
2795s	going into it because we just knew this
2797s	was such a big change but at the same
2799s	time you know there are some things that
2802s	we were kind of surprised at like you
2804s	know I was a little bit surprised at how
2807s	our our expected win rate
2810s	um you know normally we try to make
2811s	matches that are 50 50.
2813s	um our our average expected win rate got
2816s	a little bit worse
2818s	um by optimizing for role Delta and it's
2822s	kind of unintuitive like you would think
2823s	you know all of these these measures of
2825s	of good matches would kind of like
2827s	correlate together but they kind of
2829s	don't um I mean you know if you make the
2832s	one ideal match where everybody has the
2834s	same exact rating you know then it's
2836s	just a good match and we're willing to
2837s	make it
2838s	um but you know oftentimes we can't do
2840s	that and so it's kind of like which
2842s	thing do we give up on First and so
2845s	um we've still been tuning the system a
2847s	lot like ever since it launched I think
2849s	we've we've probably made a tuning
2851s	adjustment almost every day at this
2853s	point yeah and we're still going you
2855s	know like uh we're still learning
2858s	um and a lot of of that has just been
2860s	you know seeing what what goes wrong and
2862s	seeing how we can kind of like tweak
2863s	things to make things a little bit
2865s	better so yeah that sounds like some
2867s	huge infrastructure kind of challenges
2869s	going on there right yeah so how was
2872s	that perceived by the community like
2874s	what was the how how did they react
2876s	because you said it has a lot of side
2878s	effects if you make such big changes
2880s	like queue times are going to be
2881s	affected What were what was the
2883s	consensus uh and the feedback you were
2885s	given after implementing such big
2886s	changes that's a really good question
2889s	um you know it's it's very hard to
2892s	actually say with certainty like you
2894s	know how much better things got you know
2897s	we have measures that we look at that
2899s	kind of ground us and like okay you know
2901s	we
2902s	um we did actually make you know most of
2904s	our matches now have these very close
2905s	role deltas and um and like you know
2909s	we've seen a lot of community feedback I
2911s	would say it's mostly been positive
2914s	um I don't know it's a little it's a
2916s	little hard to say for sure yeah it's
2918s	when you think of all of OverWatch 2
2921s	matchmaking there's a lot of different
2923s	people that are affected by this
2925s	um you know we're going to talk a lot
2926s	about competitive play but like this
2928s	change actually mostly affects quick
2931s	play or effects quick play to an even
2933s	larger degree because their groups can
2936s	be
2937s	even more different in terms of like the
2940s	groups you can form and competitive play
2942s	there are restrictions on who you can
2944s	group with you can't group with you
2946s	can't have like a bronze player group
2947s	with a grand master player you just
2948s	can't and quick play
2951s	all those things are possible yeah you
2953s	get some really and you get some really
2954s	you get some really crazy groups and the
2956s	Matchmaker has to do the best it can
2958s	with it and it's all this new role dealt
2960s	attack
2961s	that allows us to
2963s	you know create what we think are like
2965s	overall like better matches for those
2968s	groups and then they're absolute groups
2971s	in competitive play too so yeah we get
2973s	some benefits there but like for the
2975s	people that do play in groups with like
2977s	different with different skilled players
2979s	and quick play
2981s	all the feedback we've been getting
2982s	beginning it's been great yeah um in
2985s	some cases the queue times have been a
2986s	little bit like longer because that's
2988s	really the main the main downside that
2990s	we've heard so far is especially for
2992s	large groups their Q times have gotten a
2994s	little worse and that was a little bit
2995s	unexpected I was hoping that that
2997s	wouldn't get bad
2999s	um it didn't show up in the simulations
3001s	that we did but um we have some ideas
3003s	for how to how to improve that going
3005s	forward it'll probably just take another
3006s	patch to really get it good
3009s	um but yeah it's kind of funny you know
3011s	we get a lot of feedback we see the
3012s	metrics and then we also play the game a
3014s	lot right like you know ultimately
3016s	that's kind of the best way to ground
3018s	yourself in like what this change has
3020s	done and you know I personally have been
3022s	able to feel this change you know it's
3024s	really interesting
3025s	um you know especially when you're
3027s	playing tank but even with the other
3028s	roles you can kind of tell now like it
3031s	who your rival is on the enemy team you
3034s	know because we're really trying to
3035s	match you with somebody who's very close
3036s	to your skill level and you know now in
3039s	the average case that person you know
3041s	like in ranked for example is is like
3043s	within one one division of you
3046s	um you know so they're very very closely
3049s	matched with you and so you can really
3050s	kind of feel you know a little bit more
3053s	of like that rivalry where it's like you
3055s	know are you winning that matchup or
3056s	losing that match up and it's like it's
3058s	not like you're just gonna get stomped
3060s	either way like that's going to be a
3062s	pretty close match and if you know
3063s	there's there's kind of a feel to it
3065s	that um I've thought is really cool yeah
3068s	of course you know know there's like the
3070s	other areas where like
3071s	you know we're making slightly wider
3074s	matches now in terms of the you know if
3077s	you look at like the best player minus
3079s	the worst player that's gotten a little
3081s	bit wider also kind of as a result of
3083s	this change
3084s	um and so like you know that's actually
3086s	something that we're going to be trying
3088s	to improve we actually anticipated that
3090s	that would get worse as a result of the
3092s	Roll Delta change and so in the
3095s	mid-cycle in in the 2.3.1 patch we have
3098s	some uh changes going that will actually
3101s	help shrink that back down hopefully
3103s	even to better than it was before uh
3106s	we'll have to wait and see the
3108s	simulations were very promising but you
3110s	know the simulations don't don't usually
3112s	end up like real life so no for sure we
3115s	don't know what the system like seeing
3117s	how like our players actually interact
3118s	with the system is the best way like for
3122s	us to learn and take things away from it
3124s	and I really like the way that you
3126s	framed it as a big architectural change
3128s	to the system because like you tweak one
3131s	thing and then you find out that one
3133s	thing like you have a goal for what that
3136s	thing is supposed to change but then it
3137s	inadvertently affects these other
3139s	variables as well and
3142s	um so it's it really is a process
3144s	getting to a place where
3146s	that feels good for the people that are
3149s	are playing yeah it's been it's been
3151s	really interesting too like you know
3154s	competitive queue times used to be
3156s	longer and now they're shorter
3158s	um and like in retrospect like the
3161s	system maybe wasn't actually working as
3162s	well like the new change
3165s	um
3166s	you know it's like we're still making
3167s	very good matches but we kind of like
3169s	for free almost got rid of a lot of the
3171s	queue time just because you know the new
3173s	system is like a lot smarter and and
3175s	it's kind of this like foundational
3177s	piece that um you know gives us like a
3180s	lot more ability to build off of in the
3182s	future too which is going to be really
3183s	cool
3185s	so what about players who queue into
3188s	matches and they see this wide skill
3190s	disparity like they're queuing in in
3192s	their diamond and they see a golden or
3195s	or even more so than that they're
3196s	queuing in at GM and see like a plot
3199s	player in their match like what's
3200s	happening there
3202s	yeah that's actually funny so after the
3204s	the season three changes you know this
3207s	is it was a really big change and so
3209s	there were a lot of unintended
3210s	consequences and one of them was we for
3213s	a short period were making matches that
3214s	were a lot like had a much wider skill
3217s	disparity somebody uh sent uh us a match
3220s	that was like a GM match with a gold
3223s	level player it might have been two of
3225s	your colleagues on the OverWatch League
3227s	cast Zoe that sent us a match and they
3230s	were like
3231s	we were we were matched with this like
3233s	with this gold player it's like what's
3235s	up so we actually went and looked at it
3238s	yeah we spent like a couple hours
3240s	talking there was actually a lot of
3241s	things where we talked about which is
3242s	why again looked like pointed feedback
3244s	about some of the things that's like so
3245s	useful to us but like yeah we looked at
3247s	it and it's like yeah there there was a
3249s	gold
3250s	um the other things about the match is
3252s	like they didn't realize it's like oh
3254s	the the role the role does stuff was
3256s	actually working really well it had a
3258s	gold on the other team as well no
3263s	see that uh so that was like at the same
3267s	time it's like oh this is bad but it was
3268s	kind of good too it's like it's working
3270s	yeah it was working in a way we didn't
3273s	quite expect one of the three things
3275s	about matchmakers is you know the
3276s	matchmaker is like we put this
3278s	constraint and it's like yeah you know
3280s	it's thing was like all right push this
3281s	down and like something comes up you
3284s	know it's like you can't really push
3285s	everything down all at the same time
3287s	because you don't have enough hands
3289s	so yeah it was uh it's definitely like
3291s	something that uh we happen but we we
3294s	know that we we know the players don't
3295s	think that's that's a high quality match
3298s	uh even if we make one
3300s	asking yeah because it happened to me a
3303s	bunch of times
3305s	player I ended up with GM people and
3307s	what I took from it was the game
3309s	complementing my skill because I was
3311s	unaware I was good to get back I was
3312s	like oh you really think I'm that good
3314s	so I should be playing with the Empire
3315s	as well thank you so much yeah I I've
3318s	seen feedback like on various like
3320s	social platforms where it's like yeah
3322s	there are a lot of people are like that
3323s	or like I was super excited to play with
3325s	these players yeah I never get to play
3326s	with these players it's like you know
3328s	because
3329s	playing with players that are more
3331s	skilled than you is actually an
3333s	interesting learning opportunity yeah
3335s	it's like how do these players play yeah
3338s	yeah it makes me play better but
3340s	obviously that's not how it yeah
3344s	obviously it's like we're gonna like
3346s	actually try to prevent that sort of
3348s	thing from ever happening again
3351s	I want to sneak through in a blue moon
3352s	but like it's you know but it's yeah
3355s	we're able to make some tuning changes
3358s	like once we saw the problem because you
3360s	know we add so much configurability into
3362s	every change that we make so once we saw
3364s	that problem we were able to make it
3366s	better I mean it's we can never like
3369s	have like a hard cons you know like some
3371s	players will be like oh I only ever want
3373s	to make you know I only ever want to
3374s	play like these perfect matches or
3376s	something like that and like you know we
3377s	ultimately can't do that we have to kind
3379s	of like eventually make a match right
3381s	you know we can't just have somebody
3382s	stay in queue for four hours
3385s	um and so you know this was just one of
3387s	the things where it was like you know we
3388s	kind of hadn't tuned the system just
3390s	right and so we were able to I think
3392s	mostly fix this problem at least improve
3394s	it
3395s	um but it's still something we would
3396s	like to improve even more like I think
3398s	you know ideally as fun as it is for the
3401s	gold player like you know we probably
3402s	don't ultimately ever really want to
3405s	make matches that have gold players and
3406s	GM players together yeah
3409s	um and yeah that sort of gets back to
3410s	the point of like
3412s	High Jam players
3414s	they're they're always going to be a
3416s	challenge for the Matchmaker just
3417s	because there's not that many of you
3419s	yeah sorry uh that was really just too
3422s	good yeah it's so like trying to find
3426s	like a perfect configuration of people
3428s	at any one time you know it's just
3431s	difficult so that's why I mean well
3434s	again well we've had queue times come
3436s	down we've able to make some adjustments
3437s	there that I think have been really
3438s	positive in that regard but it's always
3440s	going to be more difficult than your
3443s	gold or platinum game is where we
3444s	literally have
3446s	you know it's so many like different
3448s	players and like it's it's very easy to
3451s	come up with much more precise matches
3452s	if you're you know silver to platinum
3454s	you know you're getting kind of our the
3457s	high population experience right you
3459s	know that's like we have a whole lot of
3461s	players there but you know once you get
3463s	really high up once your Grand Master
3465s	Level like you know the best way to
3468s	increase match quality is not any change
3471s	we can make it's like
3472s	message your friends and tell them to
3474s	get online because otherwise like
3476s	there's just nobody to play against you
3479s	know yeah it's just unique problems you
3482s	need to solve in the different ranks
3483s	then right I mean it's one system but it
3485s	can't really fit all very much like hero
3487s	balancing you have different balancing
3490s	issues in bronze as you would have in a
3492s	GM game yeah absolutely it's actually oh
3494s	go ahead yeah we know that match quality
3496s	High GM takes a nosedive whenever owl
3498s	players are screaming yeah
3501s	it's absolutely a thing
3504s	um
3505s	yeah but it's like once they're done
3506s	with scrims and like you know start like
3507s	you know hopping on and you know playing
3510s	Solo or someone or someone else and yeah
3513s	all of a sudden it's like wow badge
3514s	quality is like so much better yeah
3517s	it's really um it's really kind of
3519s	interesting you know like at like gold
3522s	level you know it's actually pretty easy
3524s	to make good matches most of the time
3526s	you know we still have edge cases
3528s	sometimes but at you know that kind of
3530s	like really high MMR
3533s	um really the only way you know kind of
3535s	is like this fundamental trade-off
3537s	typical in match in matchmaking where
3540s	it's like either you have better match
3541s	quality or you have
3543s	um and longer queue times or you have
3544s	shorter queue times and worse match
3546s	quality and like there's kind of this
3548s	fundamental you know trade-off there
3550s	like
3551s	you know we could make match quality
3553s	incrementally better by putting people
3556s	in queue for twice as long like the
3559s	relationship isn't exactly you know one
3561s	to one right so like you know Pro
3563s	players will sometimes tell us like I
3564s	want you know better match quality and
3566s	we'll be like well
3568s	I could make your Q times twice as long
3571s	but that doesn't sound very appealing
3573s	right
3574s	um but like there are some things you
3576s	know long term that we're looking at
3578s	where we can not just make matches you
3581s	know better in One Way by pulling from
3584s	the other one but we can actually be
3585s	smarter and the problem there is it's
3588s	just so hard like matchmaking at that
3590s	high MMR it's like it's like this
3592s	impossible problem but we can be more
3595s	and more sophisticated you know like
3596s	I've been you know kind of looking at it
3598s	as like okay so if like if this is what
3600s	the queue looks like and I was like a
3602s	human trying to make a match what would
3604s	I be trying to do it you know it's hard
3606s	because it's like we have to encode kind
3607s	of like the wisdom that we have into you
3611s	know a computer program that's running
3612s	that's making you know hundreds or
3614s	thousands of matches a minute like you
3616s	know in this real-time way but you know
3619s	long term there are some things that we
3621s	would love to do to try to kind of like
3624s	start improving match quality at the
3626s	High Mr it's just so hard and so
3628s	experimental so like you can expect us
3630s	to definitely definitely try you know
3632s	over the next year or so some things
3634s	that hopefully will help but I you know
3636s	I can't actually make any promises
3638s	because it's like I really have you know
3641s	when before we we push like a change you
3644s	know like the role Delta change was like
3645s	I didn't actually expect the the queue
3649s	types to get a lot faster I expected
3651s	match quality to maybe get a little
3653s	worse but you know it's like now I'm
3655s	like okay it didn't exactly turn out
3657s	that way
3658s	so yeah there's a there's just a whole
3661s	lot of work that has to go into really
3663s	making match quality better at that
3665s	crazy high MMR
3667s	you can deal with
3669s	with form uh matches then as well
3672s	um so in uh ranked we just don't let
3675s	players play cross-platform so like
3677s	either you're playing uh you know mouse
3679s	keyboard or you're playing in the you
3681s	know console pool and those are just
3683s	totally separated and and you have
3685s	separate ranks too so if you're playing
3687s	on the same account on both of those uh
3690s	both of those ranks like you can you
3692s	know in theory you can be like a gold
3693s	level mouse keyboard player and a
3695s	diamond level controller player
3698s	that's me
3701s	laughs
3703s	I think it really speaks to how many
3706s	different variables go into like our
3709s	Matchmaker and making these like
3711s	changing the system and the different
3713s	things that the system can affect like
3714s	just by one small little tweak so thank
3718s	you for going into that and giving us a
3720s	little more insight on that would this
3722s	be a good time to kind of look at some
3724s	of the data that we've observed from
3726s	this roll Delta change and maybe how
3728s	that's affected the game up into this
3729s	point yeah sure so um so here's a chart
3733s	you can see here's the here's the
3735s	average uh Delta between
3738s	um between two tanks in a match a
3741s	typical match that we make and um damage
3744s	and support we don't show them here but
3745s	they're very similar same Dynamic so
3750s	um you can see when when we shipped
3752s	OverWatch to uh you know we were making
3754s	very good matches in general but
3756s	um you know we weren't really paying
3757s	attention to this and like I said this
3759s	isn't really something that kind of you
3761s	don't naturally get matches that
3763s	minimize this role Delta Without Really
3765s	Trying for it so by default in
3769s	competitive are
3772s	you know we were making matches that
3774s	were like uh the the average tank Delta
3778s	was something like two uh divisions
3781s	apart and in quick play it was three on
3783s	average and you know average is like
3786s	you know about half of the matches are
3788s	better and about half the matches are
3789s	worse and there was definitely like if
3792s	you look at the worst matches you know
3793s	you don't see them here but the worst
3795s	matches were way way worse than this and
3798s	so um
3800s	you know at this point it's like the the
3802s	teams are approximately balanced but um
3804s	especially one of the things that we saw
3806s	at ship was you know you might create a
3809s	match where like the you know the tank
3812s	on one team is the worst tank or the
3815s	worst uh player in the match and the
3817s	support player is the best player in the
3819s	match and then on the other team it's
3820s	swapped and so like that just felt kind
3823s	of weird so
3824s	um
3825s	so we made a couple rounds of changes uh
3828s	the first round came in the season one
3830s	mid cycle and that got us a good chunk
3833s	of the way there
3835s	um but it wasn't until season three
3837s	where we really uh were able to kind of
3839s	like nail both the average case and also
3842s	make the worst case quite a bit better
3844s	too so you can see now
3846s	um in competitive our average is is one
3849s	division which is very very close
3852s	um it you know that's really within the
3854s	uh the bounds of you know are you at
3857s	that point it's you know it's not really
3859s	necessarily like an average skill
3861s	difference it's like you know are you
3862s	playing well today or you know did
3865s	you know are you like exactly where
3868s	you're supposed to be in terms of your
3869s	MMR things like that so it's much it
3871s	feels much much closer yeah
3874s	of course
3875s	um by minimizing this you know you don't
3877s	really get anything for free in
3879s	matchmaking so we can go to the next
3881s	chart and you can see um
3883s	by minimizing this roll Delta we
3886s	actually uh made our expected win rate
3888s	of our matches slightly more so ideally
3892s	we like to make matches that are as
3895s	close to 50 50 win rate as possible you
3897s	know that's a really important uh
3899s	principle for us of match fairness
3903s	um and you know at OverWatch 2 ship we
3906s	were very close to that
3907s	um you know this is median so you can
3909s	think you know 50 of your matches are
3912s	better than this and 50 of them are
3914s	worse and unfortunately there is kind of
3916s	a tail a long tail here of of
3918s	progressively worse
3921s	um but you know we were very close to 50
3924s	for most of our matches at ship
3928s	um the first world Delta change we made
3930s	it was actually a little bit unintended
3932s	uh we didn't realize how much worse it
3935s	was going to get so you can see in quick
3937s	play especially in the season one
3939s	mid-cycle
3940s	um
3941s	you know the median expected win rate
3943s	went up to 55 55 from my perspective is
3946s	still not horrible like you know a 55-45
3950s	match
3951s	the losing team or you know the the team
3953s	that's not favored still wins 45 of the
3956s	time so you know that's not really
3958s	something that I think
3960s	you know if you're playing a 45-55 match
3962s	you probably won't feel like one side
3965s	really has a noticeable Advantage
3969s	um but like I said half of the matches
3972s	are worse than that so it got worse um
3974s	and you can see in season three we were
3976s	able to somewhat
3978s	um improve that you know once we saw the
3980s	problem we were able to start kind of
3982s	bending that curve back down and this is
3984s	actually you know this is now a higher
3986s	priority for us going forward like we're
3988s	going to keep making changes to kind of
3989s	minimize this even more because it's
3992s	really important for us to to make
3994s	matches that are really as Fair as
3995s	possible the other weird thing about
3997s	this is actually this expected win rate
4000s	it it's role agnostic so that means it
4003s	doesn't take into account the role mmrs
4005s	that role Delta and so this measure
4008s	getting worse is in a sense
4011s	um it looks worse than maybe it is
4014s	because by minimizing that difference
4016s	between the rolls that's also increasing
4019s	match fairness just in kind of a
4020s	different dimension so you know it's
4023s	it's a little bit hard to say you know
4024s	did matches get significantly less fair
4027s	I don't think so they might have gotten
4029s	a little bit less Fair
4031s	um and that's a trade-off that we're
4032s	making in order to make each individual
4034s	match up within the match feel more fair
4036s	so you know when we talk about match
4038s	fairness it's really hard you know it's
4040s	kind of this holistic thing where we're
4042s	looking at a lot of different factors
4043s	and trying to balance them and it it's
4045s	very hard to make this this balance you
4048s	know ultimately we kind of have to
4049s	decide which one wins sometimes and um
4052s	you know we can't always make every
4054s	match perfectly but at this point I
4057s	think you know the world Delta changes
4059s	seem like they're definitely making a
4061s	positive impact on the game I mean when
4063s	you're saying you know that the way it
4065s	feels in the game if my individual
4067s	matchup is closer as a tank uh and I'm
4070s	not just being taken for a walk by the
4073s	other tank and completely stunned even
4075s	if I lose the entire match if the
4077s	individual matchup feels closer then I
4079s	don't feel like I'm getting the short
4081s	end of the stick either right so yeah
4083s	totally I think that it kind of makes a
4085s	big difference but we're seeing in those
4087s	graphs um the frequency going from like
4089s	season to the next season uh what's the
4093s	philosophy for the uh systems team here
4095s	uh how often how frequent do you make
4099s	changes bigger changes smaller changes
4101s	any kind of changes to the matchmaking
4102s	without disrupting too much yeah
4105s	um so I mean going forward matchmaking
4108s	is just a huge priority for us in
4110s	general
4111s	um you know with OverWatch 2 we we've
4113s	kind of you know the team's larger we
4115s	have more time and and energy to really
4118s	devote to making matchmaking as good as
4119s	it can be and also it's just been a
4121s	learning opportunity for us too like
4124s	honestly since we shipped roll Q back in
4127s	2019
4129s	um at that point we had no idea what
4131s	made roll cue matches really good you
4134s	know we we had our intuitions from
4135s	before roll q but it's a lot of that
4137s	turned out to be wrong and so you know
4140s	at this point I'd say you know we've
4143s	really over the past several years
4144s	really learned what makes OverWatch
4147s	matches good and now that we have the
4151s	time that we can really devote to doing
4153s	the work I mean there's I would say we
4155s	have probably like a Year's worth of
4157s	work that we've talked about in terms of
4159s	you know this road map of all of these
4161s	things that we're aware of
4163s	um so you know in the long term like
4165s	this is going to be a huge Focus for us
4167s	going forward is making large changes
4169s	large improvements you know almost on a
4171s	patch by patch basis and then even
4174s	smaller than that like you know the
4175s	season
4176s	um three mid-cycle has I don't know
4179s	maybe three or four kind of like smaller
4181s	changes in it um including the one that
4184s	I'm really excited about which will um
4187s	it will shrink the you know the the gap
4191s	between the best player and the worst
4193s	player in the match
4194s	um it'll shrink that somewhat
4197s	um and the way that one works is
4198s	actually very interesting because
4200s	um what that change does is all it does
4204s	is try to match parties that have a
4207s	similar Delta with each other and you
4210s	would say like oh you know that why do I
4212s	care that only affects you know parties
4214s	but it actually kind of shifts the
4216s	entire curve of match quality in the
4218s	direction in in a better Direction
4220s	because it's like concentrating these
4223s	parties that are a little bit wider
4225s	together and then we can make more
4227s	matches that have like only solos or you
4229s	know uh you know Duos that are like well
4231s	paired things like that
4238s	I said it'll be more so in quick play
4239s	but even in competitive like I think
4242s	it's upsell what Diamond that we allow
4245s	to like up matches up to two ranks so
4248s	like you know if you're a gold level
4250s	player you can play with your diamond
4251s	level friend that's still a pretty large
4253s	disparity you know that's a that's a
4255s	much wider range than what I think what
4258s	players would consider an ideal match
4260s	right players definitely tell us like
4261s	yeah
4263s	sure they do and you know I I think
4266s	ideally
4268s	um you know we want to make matches that
4269s	really have as as you know title abound
4273s	as possible and so you know putting
4275s	those parties together I think is going
4276s	to do a lot to kind of improve
4279s	um that average case yeah but that's you
4281s	know that's an example of like I would
4282s	say a smaller change that um you know
4285s	we're thinking about those types of
4287s	changes kind of constantly and um and
4290s	then in addition to that we've got you
4292s	know we have so many tunable parameters
4294s	now on our Matchmaker you know you can
4296s	kind of imagine it as like an instrument
4298s	or something where like every little
4300s	knob has to be kind of just right and so
4303s	you know we've got probably hundreds of
4305s	those at this point and we're kind of
4307s	constantly adjusting those I would say
4309s	you know last week we adjusted twice I
4312s	think the week before it was like three
4313s	times you know it's almost kind of like
4315s	a daily uh thing sometimes especially
4318s	you know after this the season three
4320s	patch where we had a whole lot going in
4323s	um and so there's kind of just like you
4325s	know we really want you know every week
4327s	matchmaking to get a little bit better
4329s	and you know that's kind of the goal for
4331s	for the foreseeable future yeah
4334s	and I think one of the sort of important
4336s	thing is
4337s	we're not just looking at like the
4338s	averages like it's very easy for us like
4340s	from a data perspective to look at like
4342s	hey here's what the average is but like
4344s	the reality of matchmaking is something
4346s	we've talked about together is
4348s	the community's perception of
4349s	matchmaking is usually defined by the
4351s	absolute worst cases like those 95 those
4355s	99 percentile like cases and
4357s	a lot of adjustments we're doing are
4359s	just to the average but are just
4361s	specifically like make those like worst
4363s	cases better in fact you know we've
4365s	talked about it how
4366s	we're willing to give up a little bit of
4368s	like quality for the average just to
4371s	make those worst cases better so that's
4374s	a lot of and that's like just one of the
4376s	many things that we've been like trying
4377s	to like tune around and
4379s	this entire system is so complicated and
4381s	we've added this like major third axis
4384s	of quality not just in win expectation
4387s	and uh actually that queue time but now
4390s	there's this like a getting the roles to
4392s	like you know match together like
4393s	appropriately
4395s	that finding the right knobs a lot of
4396s	times we're like we'll make a change and
4398s	we're like
4399s	that didn't do exactly what we thought
4401s	it does but it's like it's cool that we
4403s	know that like if we mess with that knob
4404s	but that's what it does because the
4407s	system is so complex that like and
4409s	there's just constraints everywhere
4410s	inside by changing one constraint
4412s	the thing you didn't think what that
4415s	really meant something all of a sudden
4416s	like become super important and like so
4420s	but we're trying we're we're just like
4422s	it's and a lot again it's just like
4425s	almost daily like changes you know
4427s	making sure it's like you know a lot you
4429s	know we get immediate like responses
4431s	from live Ops it's like uh we really
4433s	mess with Cue times oops
4435s	or or you know just we just get like a
4438s	lot of like anecdotal feedback from
4439s	everyone on the team and everyone on
4441s	Reddit and like everyone like you know
4443s	all the streamers like the entire
4445s	community and all that feedback is super
4447s	useful because again that's
4449s	at the end of the day what we're really
4450s	trying to do is just make these matches
4453s	there's like the concept of mathematical
4455s	absolute fairness
4457s	which I think we we really like in
4458s	OverWatch one like really concentrated
4460s	on but like when OverWatch 2 we're
4462s	really trying to say it's like all right
4463s	there's more to match quality than just
4465s	that
4467s	and that's what you're seeing like you
4469s	know with all these with these like roll
4470s	Delta chaining out changes other changes
4473s	that we're doing like in future like we
4475s	know that
4476s	you know there's a lot of like you know
4478s	people saying it's like wow Q times an
4479s	archaic can be really bad
4481s	um yeah that's something we need to fix
4482s	we're looking at that uh
4485s	there's a lot there's like a there's
4487s	there's other like things
4489s	um we've been like sort of looking at
4491s	it's like
4492s	you know it's like if you play quick
4493s	play and then go in competitive it's
4495s	like the different like cues sometimes
4497s	you have like different really different
4498s	experiences and we want to make make
4499s	them more holistic sort of view of like
4501s	how skilled you are
4503s	um there's a lot of things that we that
4505s	we really want to improve going forward
4506s	that again I think will no matter how
4508s	you play OverWatch whether it's click
4510s	play whether it's competitive whether
4511s	it's whether you're in bronze whether
4513s	you're in GM
4515s	will give you a better experience
4516s	through matchmaking yeah I really
4518s	appreciate how uh your team seems to be
4522s	taking like
4523s	like a really analytical approach and
4525s	part of that is the data that we see in
4528s	simulations before things go live part
4530s	of that is looking at data after things
4532s	have gone live part of that is listening
4534s	to community feedback and seeing what
4536s	the player experiences part of that is
4539s	US experiencing it ourselves it sounds
4541s	like there's so many different routes
4544s	and so many different avenues that
4546s	affect our decision making and for me
4549s	it's comforting to know that like this
4551s	is a system that like we don't see
4553s	ourselves like reaching the absolute
4556s	perfect like this is something that
4558s	we're going to continue to iterate on
4560s	and will always be growing and
4562s	developing as you said almost daily
4564s	Matchmaker changes go in absolutely I
4568s	think um you know like I I've thought of
4571s	like what is the ideal you know
4573s	Matchmaker honestly we are like so far
4577s	away from from what that could be
4580s	um you know it's really exciting because
4581s	I think we just have you know we have
4584s	like a road map that could span years
4586s	that's like meaningful improvements
4588s	every step of the way and and yeah you
4590s	know it's really important to stay
4591s	grounded I think
4593s	you know like if you asked us a year ago
4595s	what we thought would be important today
4598s	in terms of matchmaking like we wouldn't
4600s	have given the same answer
4602s	um you know staying grounded like you're
4604s	saying reading all the data
4606s	um you know running hypotheses testing
4609s	you know changes live
4611s	um all of those are really good ways for
4613s	us to you know test our theories you
4616s	know we we um I I feel like our our hit
4620s	rate on uh you know like if we make a
4622s	guess of like oh we we think this is a
4624s	good change I think maybe we get it
4627s	right about 25 of the time or something
4630s	like that
4631s	um almost inevitably when we're when
4633s	we're working on a change something
4635s	about that is going to challenge our
4637s	initial conception of of what we thought
4639s	was going to happen and so
4642s	um yeah very important to to yeah stay
4645s	mindful of that it's part of the science
4647s	right like Game Dev being like an art
4649s	and a science like we're we're out here
4652s	trying new things and not proving things
4654s	to be true but finding out what's not
4655s	true and then iterating off of that and
4657s	I think that's really really neat and
4659s	really interesting and
4661s	um I also really appreciate you framing
4663s	up Matchmaker from the perspective of
4665s	different game modes
4667s	um I know that for me when we first
4670s	started having discussions about
4672s	Matchmaker I was approaching almost all
4674s	of those discussions from a competitive
4675s	perspective but Matchmaker exists
4678s	everywhere in OverWatch and I really
4680s	appreciate you painting the different uh
4683s	like places in game like how it affects
4686s	quick play different than it affects
4687s	competitive and
4689s	um yeah that's that's really interesting
4692s	for me just for the uh General
4694s	understanding for everyone who might not
4696s	be so familiar intimately familiar with
4698s	all those different
4700s	um systems in place for a Matchmaker how
4703s	are you using the same system for each
4706s	and every different mode or do you have
4708s	to make different kind of systems or
4710s	like cut something out of one to make it
4713s	work for arcade to make it work for
4714s	competitive Etc yeah that's actually
4716s	that's a great question and actually
4718s	that kind of speaks to kind of the
4721s	complexity of the overall system so we
4723s	do have a single converged architecture
4725s	that runs across all of our cues the
4728s	thing is you know because we want
4731s	something different out of competitive
4733s	role queue versus you know arcade
4736s	um we have a lot of configuration that
4739s	is kind of per queue and we're we're
4741s	actually working on kind of a new layer
4743s	of that even
4745s	um that gives us even more fine-tuned
4747s	control so
4749s	um because yeah at the at the end of the
4750s	day like there's some stuff that only
4752s	runs for roll cue you know like
4755s	ironically I made this roll Delta also
4758s	work for non-roll cues because I really
4761s	wanted to reuse the tech so the way it
4765s	works for non-roll cues it's an
4766s	interesting idea in roll cues you only
4769s	ever have two of a single role on a
4771s	given team at most but in non-roll cues
4774s	you have you know five players of
4777s	no role right
4779s	um so I made the system care about the
4782s	the highest and lowest MMR player of
4785s	each team and and kind of in that way
4788s	you can think of it as
4791s	um you know a 5V it's like five of roll
4794s	none versus five overall none and and
4797s	you know we're still reusing the system
4798s	it's it needs to be tuned differently
4800s	but like we can kind of reuse some of
4802s	the text so you know sometimes it's kind
4804s	of like you know can we can we find a
4807s	way to make the same system make sense
4809s	across multiple cues because it you know
4812s	there's kind of actually a
4813s	configurability nightmare if we have to
4815s	manage like 30 different cues all of
4818s	which have subtly different Behavior
4820s	it's like you know if there's a problem
4822s	with one we're never even gonna find
4823s	that because it's like a needle in a
4825s	haystack at that point yeah so yeah it's
4827s	it's a that's a great question and it's
4829s	it's a major
4831s	um it's something we think about a whole
4832s	lot
4833s	awesome if I'd love to hear like any
4836s	final thoughts on matchmaking or if
4838s	there are any other questions that you
4840s	have Zoe um or anything that you you
4842s	guys want to input otherwise I think I'm
4845s	gonna shift gears and talk about
4847s	competitive I I'd love to dive into
4850s	competitive ones yeah because all right
4852s	let's go um so yeah let's do it awesome
4856s	so
4857s	um first I'd like to do kind of like a
4860s	retrospective on the season three
4862s	updates that we saw and kind of explain
4863s	like why uh we made those changes
4868s	sure so season three
4871s	uh sort of we've done a few things like
4874s	for competitive play
4875s	um you know we changed the UI a little
4877s	bit we made the um we added specifically
4880s	like well season three I guess
4882s	this is where like
4884s	so many patches
4885s	almost right in my head we've uh added
4889s	the ability to see
4890s	um your competitive update screen at
4893s	like any time uh and then the mid-cycle
4895s	patch that we're adding in like newer
4897s	buttons for that to make it like easier
4898s	to get to like made that like you know
4901s	really pretty
4902s	um
4902s	then
4904s	sort of like we've also like made some
4906s	changes in anticipation of what we're
4909s	doing in season four
4910s	where the seasonal rank Decay we didn't
4914s	put as much decay in we yeah we nerfed
4917s	it yeah it was Morgan said it best we
4918s	basically nerfed it uh because in season
4921s	four we're going to be removing that so
4925s	we didn't want to make it as much of a
4928s	you know what what just happened you
4930s	know it's like one of the things that
4931s	we've learned about like competitive
4932s	play like an OverWatch 2. we made some
4934s	pretty big changes
4936s	and I honestly think we just didn't
4938s	communicate those super well so like one
4941s	of the big sort of takeaways from the
4944s	competitive play leading up is just
4946s	people don't understand how the system
4947s	works so
4949s	a lot of the changes that we're working
4950s	towards especially like with season four
4952s	is
4953s	making things more clear for players
4956s	um yeah getting you know
4958s	because people want to have confidence
4960s	in
4962s	you know what what they're playing you
4964s	know what they want to be able to set
4965s	goals they want to be able there's all
4966s	these things they want to do and when
4968s	they don't understand how the system
4969s	works it sort of works against all that
4971s	so that's one of the big things oh and
4973s	yes season three we also changed the
4975s	number of like wins from seven to five
4977s	right
4978s	um which that wasn't that was an
4980s	interesting change and that was
4982s	something where it was originally seven
4983s	for like a very interesting reason that
4985s	we I think we really talked about too
4987s	much what we shipped with as far as
4989s	competitive play for OverWatch to wasn't
4992s	everything that we wanted to ship with
4994s	one of the major
4995s	um features that we were looking forward
4997s	to was this concept of being able to
4999s	provide players with periodic
5002s	uh information about how well they're
5004s	performing
5005s	even potentially like on a hero basis so
5007s	the idea of like hey you have seven wins
5009s	out of those seven wins you played like
5011s	these Heroes hey look at these how well
5013s	you performed on these Heroes let's say
5015s	you played like
5016s	um Soldier 76 you know Cassidy and
5019s	sojourn well you played the you played
5022s	those Heroes during those wins like
5024s	let's look at your accuracy it's like
5026s	are you preferring better or worse than
5028s	your particular than like other players
5030s	that you're like skill rank and we
5032s	really like that concept because we want
5034s	to provide information to players to
5036s	help to help give them goals to provide
5039s	them with like information about hey how
5041s	do you get better at competitive at
5043s	um you know competitive OverWatch too
5044s	right because we went from like we went
5047s	from Sr to something extremely granular
5050s	to something that was a little more
5053s	broader with the skill tier and division
5055s	so it sounds like you really want to
5058s	contextualize like not just take away
5060s	that granularity for the sake of making
5062s	it less granular but also it's very
5065s	difficult or it was very difficult to
5067s	contextualize Sr like what you're
5069s	talking about with like how well am I
5071s	performing compared to other Cassidy
5073s	players like that that context it wasn't
5077s	there for Sr and it sounds like that's
5080s	something we're moving towards yeah and
5083s	becoming better at over at OverWatch too
5086s	like if you're the type of player who's
5088s	actively trying to improve that's a
5090s	long-term process
5091s	and we really didn't feel like
5093s	and that's our value that was changing
5094s	after every game was really sort of
5096s	setting the right signals like for that
5098s	because
5099s	when you think about it it's like
5101s	you know if batch tracking is doing an
5102s	awesome job you're going to win and lose
5104s	about 50 of the time right and it's like
5107s	if you're you know it's like if you're
5108s	improving it's like that 50 50 will
5110s	still sort of be there but you'll the
5112s	quality of the teams that you're playing
5113s	with like the quality of the opponents
5115s	it sort of like goes up over time like
5117s	as you've improved so
5119s	that was another sort of big thing about
5121s	sort of changing the entire like Sr
5124s	change after rematch to this competitive
5125s	update system is
5127s	really just sort of like framing that in
5129s	terms of
5131s	a longer term Journey for for players
5134s	not concentrating on like individual
5136s	matches which are highly variable for a
5139s	huge number of reasons I mean that's you
5142s	know we talk about OverWatch 2
5144s	competitive play there's just I think
5146s	this idea that it's like oh I'm gold
5148s	three so I'm going to play at a gold
5150s	three like level whatever that is
5152s	every single game and in reality it's
5155s	like
5155s	all right some games I like got super
5157s	lucky hit a bunch of headshots other
5159s	games it's like oh my goodness I made
5161s	this most horrible misposition
5163s	and it was just like we lost like we
5165s	lost a team fight
5167s	there's a lot of variation variation in
5169s	that which is what I like which again we
5171s	sort of just wanted to spread out like
5172s	the updates because
5174s	again recognizing that like any
5177s	individual game
5178s	doesn't actually mean that much really
5180s	right yeah um so
5184s	yeah I mean so that was sort of a big
5187s	thing and again to get back to the like
5189s	another question we get from the
5191s	community is like why is it wins and not
5193s	wins and losses well because we wanted
5195s	to do this report
5196s	one thing we know just from looking at
5199s	Stats is the stats you have when
5201s	whenever you win games are completely
5204s	different than when you lose them
5205s	and if we're going to do any kind of
5207s	like apples to apples comparison you
5209s	know because again these reports were
5210s	like something that like over time you
5212s	would see them change and you get you
5215s	you get you know positive reinforcement
5217s	saying it's like oh I'm getting better
5218s	at this you know because the idea was
5220s	you see this report it's like oh this is
5222s	something I can get better at you
5224s	actively try to get better at that you
5226s	know you play not just to play but you
5228s	play with like oh I'm gonna like work on
5231s	my like my headshot accuracy or I'm
5233s	going to work on you know particular
5235s	like you know Sportability making sure
5237s	that's more effective you know making my
5239s	old support making my olds better
5241s	um that I think was like interesting but
5243s	unfortunately we didn't ship with that
5245s	so that sort of like
5247s	we had to like read it's like okay if
5249s	we're not gonna do that even though we
5250s	want to still do it in the future but
5252s	like for now
5253s	let's like me you know seven seven wins
5256s	felt like too much
5257s	so that's why I changed it to five right
5260s	um and that's sort of where we are of
5262s	season three
5264s	and now season four
5266s	we can start talking about that
5268s	are you ready ah yes yes okay cool cool
5271s	season four so season four the big
5274s	change that we're doing there is we're
5276s	going to be removing the seasonal rank
5277s	Decay
5278s	um
5279s	so
5280s	that was another aspect that we were
5282s	trying to add in with OverWatch to
5286s	um going back in time to OverWatch one
5288s	um
5289s	we gotta leave a lot of feedback from
5291s	players like over time where they felt
5293s	like there wasn't really that much
5294s	changes between Seasons
5296s	[Music]
5296s	um
5297s	there's a lot of like sort of pent-up
5299s	demand for this idea of it's like I want
5302s	sort of this
5303s	I'm going to use a strange word because
5305s	if I say if I say MMR reset Morgan will
5308s	freak out because that's like an almost
5309s	horrible idea ever don't do it but
5311s	there's this idea of it's like
5313s	a new season starts I want to like you
5315s	know I want to refocus my efforts you
5318s	know I want to like start this journey
5319s	again towards working towards Greater
5321s	Heights of my skill
5323s	and there was no real way to do that
5326s	because for most players what what
5328s	actually happens is they reach a certain
5330s	skill
5331s	and then they'll just sort of change
5333s	around like different like you know
5335s	tiers or now sub you know divisions
5338s	um
5339s	so the idea was we're going to like
5341s	lower your
5343s	lower your division or your skill tier
5345s	and division at the beginning of the
5346s	season
5347s	to provide that sort of moment of it's
5349s	like oh I've got another goal to work
5350s	towards I can start this journey again
5354s	so that didn't quite out work the way we
5357s	wanted to for a couple of big reasons
5360s	um and this is the big Maya culpa moment
5362s	of you know of what shoe competitive
5364s	play one
5366s	we didn't again we didn't explain what
5368s	was happening
5369s	uh and that was sort of like sort of a
5371s	big thing people came away it's like
5373s	wait a new season just started why is my
5375s	ranks much lower did I suddenly get
5377s	worse I don't I don't feel like I got
5379s	any worse than like OverWatch why did
5381s	this just go down and
5384s	so we didn't communicate what it was
5385s	trying to do and the other thing was for
5388s	this sort of like system for to create
5390s	that Journey
5392s	have making doing this every two months
5394s	is probably too short
5396s	um we looked a lot of data with regards
5398s	to like how many people how many games
5400s	of competitive people play there's a lot
5402s	of them that maybe only play like 15 or
5404s	20 games which isn't even like
5407s	enough the way we tuned it it was going
5409s	to take more than that to work your way
5411s	back up to your quote-unquote real
5415s	um skill skill level
5417s	and because they didn't get back to that
5420s	instead of this like virtuous journey of
5422s	like hey I'm like gonna get back I'm
5424s	gonna like restart I'm gonna like you
5426s	know try hard this time I'm gonna get
5428s	like so much better at OverWatch too it
5430s	was like we lowered them back down they
5432s	got back up a little bit and then we
5433s	lowered it back down and got about it
5434s	then we lowered it back down
5436s	and it didn't feel virtuous it felt
5438s	punitive which is like not at all we
5441s	didn't want that at all
5442s	um so
5444s	for those reasons and again just to make
5446s	just to make things clearer
5448s	we're just removing it so
5450s	when season four starts
5453s	um when you first go to play competitive
5454s	play there'll be a little there'll be a
5456s	message uh that pops up saying hey we're
5458s	removing this we're also just sort of
5460s	removing like all the effects of it so
5462s	we're like resetting everyone back to
5463s	like what their quote unquote
5466s	actual like skill is so we'll pop a
5469s	little up dialogue indicating hey this
5470s	is what your previous ranks were back in
5472s	season three and here's your new ones in
5474s	season four
5475s	again with the idea that hey we need to
5478s	fully explain what's happening because
5479s	when we don't explain things uh
5482s	it's not good I'm glad that you know you
5486s	guys are here to talk to us about this
5488s	like being here and communicating with
5490s	with us and and the players is it means
5493s	a lot yeah I mean same sentiment here
5495s	like the transparency is really really
5497s	so important especially with systems
5499s	which are just so complicated so
5502s	intricate and as you said you turn one
5504s	knob and then everything else changes so
5505s	like there is a lot of communication
5507s	which needs to happen in order for the
5509s	people who play the game to really
5510s	understand why things are happening the
5513s	way they are I do want to ask though
5516s	why do people or shouldn't people want
5520s	that full MMR reset because still like
5523s	that that is what people like I see that
5525s	so often in the community it's like why
5526s	don't I just reset it please tell them
5528s	why that's not what they want yeah
5531s	that's a it's a good question so like
5533s	you know I can understand the sentiment
5535s	right it's like you know if you feel
5537s	like your MMR is not where it should be
5540s	or something like that you're like ah
5541s	just reset it all right
5543s	you know it's really actually kind of
5544s	fascinating we have millions of players
5546s	and if you think about it most of those
5549s	players have never actually played each
5551s	other right so
5553s	um by default if we throw all of the
5558s	ratings that we have out we're losing a
5561s	whole lot of information like our
5563s	current view of of everybody's skill you
5565s	know your individual skill may not be
5567s	calibrated but the system as a whole
5570s	embeds a whole lot of knowledge about
5572s	the relationship between all of these
5574s	players most of whom who have never
5575s	actually played against each other you
5577s	know like in in chess we have you have
5579s	like ELO or something
5581s	and you know the community of chess
5583s	players is somewhat small and like you
5586s	know you'll go to these tournaments and
5587s	like everybody's kind of playing each
5589s	other and it you know it kind of makes
5591s	sense
5592s	um but in in OverWatch like we don't
5595s	really have that like you know unless
5597s	you're on top 500 or something then
5599s	you're actually playing with with other
5600s	you know all the other people
5602s	um that's a separate problem but uh but
5605s	generally with ratings it's like you
5607s	know we really want to have some view of
5611s	everybody's skill and even a rough view
5613s	is much better than no information
5614s	because what happens if we throw all of
5616s	it out is you'll get games where like
5619s	bronze players are playing against top
5622s	500 players
5623s	and we've actually done that internally
5625s	right because like we have bronze
5627s	players on our team and top 500 players
5629s	on our on on Team Four right and so like
5631s	in those play tests like those are not
5633s	fun to play tennis yeah uh it turns out
5636s	that uh that matches only really feel
5639s	fun in a very very narrow difference of
5643s	of skill otherwise you know one team's
5645s	just gonna Stomp the other team you know
5646s	OverWatch is a very decisive game and
5649s	being like Platinum versus gold like
5652s	that's a very noticeable difference in
5654s	skill
5655s	um and so you know all of that
5656s	information that the ratings have in
5658s	aggregate it's extremely valuable like
5661s	you know whenever somebody asks about
5663s	MMR I feel like No don't touch the mmrs
5667s	break the entire matchmaking if you
5669s	if you throw out the enemy
5671s	yeah because the information is not
5673s	going to be there that means that the
5674s	roll Delta graph is going to go all the
5676s	way up again
5678s	exactly but not in a good way yeah I
5681s	think this sort of this there's a little
5683s	bit of like misunderstanding about like
5684s	how long it would take for the system to
5686s	readjust
5688s	um
5688s	you know when these conversations come
5690s	up the people will be like oh it'll just
5691s	probably take a month and it's like
5693s	no you don't understand like this months
5697s	like years like yeah it's it's actually
5699s	interesting in the sense of you know
5701s	with OverWatch 2 coming out you know
5703s	we're going free to play it's like all
5704s	these like new players
5706s	there is a little bit of like our
5707s	matchmaking has been has technically
5710s	gotten worse just because we have this
5712s	mass number of people that we don't know
5714s	much about them right
5717s	you know people try to compare like how
5719s	OverWatch one matchmaking was right
5721s	before we shipped OverWatch too and
5723s	that's where we had players who had
5726s	played a ton of games they played a lot
5728s	of Heroes they've played all the maps
5731s	they've gone through like multiple metas
5732s	they were all like very knowledgeable
5735s	and like the matchmaker's view of their
5737s	skill was
5739s	reasonably accurate but when you bring
5742s	in new players think about like all the
5743s	things they potentially like have to
5745s	have to learn again all the heroes on
5747s	their particular role within just one
5748s	role all the different Maps
5751s	um again like they haven't been through
5752s	like multiple different Meta Meta swings
5755s	and
5756s	when we talk about like what the
5758s	matchmakers view of the skill is
5760s	you know it's not
5762s	it's not as simple as like hey I won
5764s	game it like I get better I lose game it
5767s	is but like the reality is the amount is
5770s	like different but like the other thing
5771s	is that like as a new player
5774s	you know
5776s	the Matchmaker can think you're of a
5778s	certain skill because you've been
5779s	playing let's say like you're you've
5781s	been playing soldier 76 and you've been
5782s	having a good amount of success right
5784s	put your new player you're like all
5786s	right I feel like I've I'm doing well on
5788s	Soldier 76 I'm going to switch to
5790s	Cassidy
5791s	all right at that point the matchmaker's
5794s	view of their skill is wrong again
5796s	because you're on a completely like new
5798s	hero right we also see other like sort
5800s	of changes again and it's been great to
5803s	see all this like we love it you know
5804s	all these like new friends bringing
5806s	other friends to play OverWatch to who
5808s	hadn't played it before but when you
5810s	play with like different groups of
5811s	friends
5812s	that can sort of change
5814s	what your skill is because you might
5817s	play with your friends differently than
5818s	you would play like solo Warriors like
5820s	super try Harding right yeah like the
5822s	Matchmaker like all it really you know
5824s	it really just has this like one view of
5826s	what you are
5827s	and with new players it's
5829s	Lots can happen to that so
5832s	that's again why we're like so scared
5834s	with us about like you know like this
5837s	talk of like MMR
5838s	um MMR reset because
5841s	it would just it would it would
5843s	literally take like like
5845s	you mentioned it years yeah really
5847s	delicious build up this like combined
5849s	knowledge about like all the players and
5852s	when you think about like all the
5853s	different accounts they have on all the
5854s	different roles
5856s	um it's yeah it's it's mind-boggling
5860s	I'm not sure if we want to share
5862s	information on this but I'm curious if
5864s	you can give us a little more insight
5865s	onto into like new players versus
5870s	veteran players like you're mentioning
5872s	like for OverWatch one we had all this
5874s	like data and then we launched OverWatch
5876s	too and a lot of these players carry
5878s	over but we also have new maps we have a
5881s	new game mode we have new Heroes and we
5883s	have a lot of new players so I'm curious
5886s	what your Insight is there yeah that's
5889s	interesting like we definitely like some
5891s	new players are something we've
5893s	definitely like looked at pretty closely
5894s	like we want to try to
5896s	again because the Matchmaker has such a
5899s	so little understanding of you know just
5901s	how good they are and everything that
5903s	matchmaker is based upon is this idea of
5905s	like how good are you like so we can
5908s	match you up with other people of that
5910s	same like sort of skill
5911s	and that's something where
5913s	we've like try to do our best we've done
5916s	things with regards to trying to like
5918s	start them off at like a better place so
5920s	they're not like like the situation we
5922s	don't want is like hi I'm a new player
5923s	OverWatch and we totally like
5925s	misevaluate your skill and you lose a
5927s	bunch of games because we think you're
5929s	way better than you are so
5932s	we've done work on that regard yeah we
5935s	did a whole lot actually like you know
5937s	when we were working on the launch of
5939s	OverWatch 2 we knew you know that we
5941s	were going to have a ton of new players
5943s	show up and we also knew that we were
5944s	going to have a ton of people who had
5945s	like played OverWatch years ago come
5947s	back and so you know we built systems
5950s	specifically to
5953s	um you know try to make those players
5954s	experience as good as possible and you
5956s	know as a result of that make everybody
5958s	else's experience playing with those new
5960s	players as good as possible too
5962s	um so yeah we did the um you know we
5965s	very carefully tuned you know kind of
5967s	the new player experience in terms of
5969s	like what their ratings look like when
5970s	they enter the game kind of how much
5972s	uncertainty we have about them how fast
5974s	we move their ratings one one thing
5976s	that's like the bane of my existence is
5978s	when people do like unranked to GM you
5981s	know like they make a fresh account and
5983s	then like play to GM you know because
5985s	like their first several matches are
5986s	really bad so like we added a system to
5989s	try to kind of like hey you're you're
5991s	like on a win streak that we don't
5993s	expect you to be on your MMR should
5996s	probably be way different than what it
5997s	is
5998s	um so thankfully you know we've like
5999s	Shrunk the number of matches that it
6002s	takes for somebody to like kind of
6003s	calibrate when they're just coming into
6005s	the system by quite a bit
6015s	yeah I
6017s	yeah and then also like for returning
6020s	players you know we um we did a lot of
6023s	work to kind of model like we we kind of
6025s	do Decay players when they come back if
6027s	they've been gone for a really long time
6029s	just to try to kind of like ease them a
6032s	bit in and then also we we increase our
6034s	uncertainty about them too so it's like
6036s	we're kind of like much more willing I
6038s	mean we treat them a little bit more
6039s	like a new player because it's like you
6041s	know we don't know what you've been
6042s	doing for the past two years maybe
6043s	you've been you know not playing video
6045s	games at all maybe you've been like
6046s	playing a different shooter and you're
6048s	even better right so yeah a whole lot of
6051s	work that went in kind of at launched to
6053s	really try to get ahead of a lot of
6055s	those things
6056s	but you know still a whole lot of new
6058s	players a whole lot of new uncertainty
6059s	in the system yeah and we've been
6061s	dealing with it I think um you know
6064s	that's probably the type of thing
6065s	that'll just get better over time
6069s	just yeah it's uh the the answer to
6071s	every question is always just play more
6073s	games yeah
6074s	yeah
6077s	and to give the Matchmaker a better like
6078s	view of like how good you are yeah it's
6080s	like that's sort of like the two things
6082s	that sort of solve all like you know
6083s	matchmaking things like play more games
6085s	and have more people playing games so we
6087s	can there's even more people to
6088s	potentially match you with yeah right
6091s	I I was just wondering what the what the
6094s	team's stance is on actually displaying
6096s	uh
6097s	the team ranks like we're heading into a
6100s	game
6101s	um in competitive like is that something
6104s	discouraging because you know like very
6107s	often uh back when there was like the
6110s	team MMR in the versus screen right at
6111s	the beginning uh your team immediately
6114s	if they have a lower Sr would go like oh
6116s	well we lose so like immediate defeat a
6119s	kind of attitude
6121s	um what's this the stands from your team
6123s	about displaying uh those kind of sure
6126s	mmrs so that brings us to another change
6129s	in season four haha there he goes
6133s	um not quite like everything you I think
6135s	you're asked for but like we are going
6136s	to display like
6138s	um before like a competitive match and
6140s	that likes our team screen at least what
6142s	the average like for this particular
6144s	like game is so you know you can see
6147s	it's like hey this is a
6149s	Platinum 4 match
6151s	um it just to give you sort of like a
6154s	better idea it's like am I maybe I'm a
6156s	little bit better than everyone in here
6158s	or maybe I'm a little bit worse you know
6159s	it gives you some information about that
6161s	um again like
6163s	we definitely like seeing the feedback
6164s	with regards to like hey I just want to
6166s	see like what everyone's like sort of
6167s	values are
6169s	um
6169s	some of that I think is is positive like
6172s	we we do
6173s	we do get very pointed feedback about
6176s	the Matchmaker when that when that
6177s	happens which that you know that doesn't
6180s	necessarily that doesn't really bother
6182s	us but I think it's more just that we
6185s	don't want like players to necessarily
6186s	like hone in on like
6189s	precisely like what those like values
6191s	are because a lot of times they'll sort
6193s	of like they'll make judgments about the
6195s	match before they've even played it yeah
6196s	like a self-fulfilling prophecy right
6198s	and that could be like that could be
6200s	really negative right it's like because
6201s	again like we're not going to put you in
6203s	like a horrible like a super horrible
6205s	match you know Morgan was talking
6206s	earlier about it's like you know 55 45
6209s	like it sounds horrible but it's like no
6211s	you win 45 of the time right and it's
6213s	like
6215s	it's the kind of thing of like it's
6216s	still work it's still worth going in and
6218s	trying your hardest yeah right it's
6220s	something that you know I think over
6221s	time and especially like as we're making
6222s	like all these like matchmaking changes
6224s	you know and we're trying to do like all
6227s	these like tuning things it's something
6228s	that you know we might like put back
6230s	like in the future like but for now
6232s	um we're gonna like take you know baby
6234s	steps which is like putting in the like
6236s	you know what is the like sort of rank
6238s	of this particular match yeah we've been
6240s	talking about it a lot I mean we've
6242s	there's a challenge because it's like we
6244s	want to show players more about matches
6246s	right like we want to kind of show you
6248s	know how good these matches are but it's
6251s	hard because it's like finding ways you
6253s	know like the charts that I was showing
6254s	earlier like those are kind of hard
6256s	especially if like it's on a screen that
6258s	you're just seeing for a few seconds
6260s	like you know part kind of understanding
6263s	some of that information can be
6264s	difficult and also yeah like Scott was
6266s	saying we don't want to create a
6268s	situation where somebody's going to like
6270s	you know not try their hardest because
6273s	we've already lost
6275s	like it's interesting like in in
6276s	Starcraft actually they used to show
6278s	this where it was like oh you know your
6280s	your team or your you know you are
6282s	favored to win or the enemy is favored
6284s	to win and like that you know that kind
6286s	of works in a 1v1 game where you can be
6288s	like okay you know I might lose this
6290s	match but in a team match where it's
6292s	like your team is not favored to win you
6295s	know then it's like well what you know
6297s	are my teammates bad like
6303s	though like that's a that's a Content
6306s	booster yeah yeah
6308s	so if we could only get the good the
6310s	good side of it yeah if we can only get
6312s	the positive without the negative then
6314s	sure but yeah again it's it's hard to
6317s	it's hard to it's hard to talk about a
6319s	lot about like magic like this is the
6321s	matchmaker's view of your quality and
6323s	like
6324s	we can't just hit you with a bunch of
6326s	math and like weird numbers that you
6328s	know like that we're looking at and
6330s	because again like
6332s	we really want to make competitive play
6334s	understandable right you know
6336s	so that's
6338s	so we just have to like we were just
6339s	we'd have to be like be very careful of
6341s	what we display to players that they
6343s	don't inadvertently
6345s	you know take that information like the
6347s	wrong way you know it's like yeah
6349s	because so much of it needs to be
6350s	contextualized right like it's so much
6353s	information yeah and again it's like
6356s	none of these numbers are absolute at
6358s	the end of the day right it's like this
6361s	is the matchmaker's current like best
6363s	view of like what this match is but it's
6365s	like
6366s	who know it's like maybe like like once
6370s	it makes the match what everyone plays
6372s	has a way bigger effect than like just
6375s	putting the people in it's like is
6378s	everyone playing like the super like
6380s	hard meta like picks what if someone's
6383s	like trying something like different you
6385s	know it's like there's all these like
6386s	different effects that once you actually
6387s	get into the match
6388s	that yeah it's yeah yeah we've been
6391s	trying to study that a lot lately
6392s	actually yeah like what causes one-sided
6395s	matches you know because it doesn't feel
6398s	fun to like lose and you know you feel
6400s	like you got stomped and people blame
6402s	the Matchmaker for that yeah 100 and
6405s	it's funny you know like we've been
6406s	trying really hard to you know like
6408s	really the problem there is like what
6410s	signal can we see that is actually
6412s	predictive of like a Stomp and so far we
6416s	really haven't come up with a whole lot
6418s	we found a few things you know that
6419s	we've been able to kind of fix at the
6421s	edges but kind of the core problem just
6423s	seems you know like if if one person's
6425s	like having an off day 45 is not you
6430s	know you don't win a 4v5 so and even if
6433s	and again even if it's not even if
6435s	someone's not having a a bad day it's
6438s	like
6438s	you know it's like two teams trying
6440s	their hardest like someone's gonna win
6441s	that first team fight yeah you know and
6444s	then I drove OverWatch it's like you win
6445s	the first team fight that gives you a
6446s	little bit of like you know ultimate
6448s	economy Edge that potentially like gives
6450s	you like an advantage like on the second
6451s	you know on the second team fight like
6453s	there's there's things
6456s	that again the Matchmaker can't solve
6458s	all those like kind of problems
6460s	um it really can't unfortunately you can
6462s	see it on like control Maps where like
6464s	you know on on point on the first point
6466s	like one team might just like roll the
6468s	other team and it's like oh my God like
6470s	this is such a one-sided match and then
6471s	the you know the next point it happens
6474s	the other way and it's like yeah okay
6475s	wait you know that happens all the time
6477s	and uh you know so it's like in that
6479s	case that's probably actually a balanced
6481s	match
6483s	I mean you can only do so much math at
6485s	the end of the day it's people playing
6487s	right and it turns out humans are not
6489s	super consistent no we're not robots
6492s	right I think I am excited for it though
6494s	I think yet oh my goodness
6498s	um for season four aren't we providing
6500s	more uh context to the competitive
6503s	updates to kind of help people
6504s	understand how they're doing
6508s	thank you Jody yes we are
6511s	uh so another thing we've been asked for
6514s	is hey we show you how many wins you
6517s	have give me see how many losses dies
6519s	and we're gonna provide that so again
6522s	and not providing that is one of the
6524s	things that made it seem like you know
6527s	it's like a competitive update happens
6528s	and sometimes I went up a division
6531s	sometimes I went down a division and a
6533s	lot of that was confusing because we
6534s	didn't actually show you like the losses
6536s	and
6538s	um yeah and again because because we're
6540s	all human
6541s	we sometimes forget about losses just
6544s	like we forget about like that leave
6545s	that we might have had because you know
6548s	because I you know with family emergency
6550s	or something like that you know and we
6552s	do penalize for leaves as well
6554s	um so
6555s	yeah we're including like more
6557s	information there specifically like the
6559s	the losses and ties and the the
6562s	breakdown of where you are oh yes well
6564s	okay
6566s	and specific not so much like so once
6568s	you actually complete an update
6570s	um
6571s	again because like within a division
6573s	there's actually like a there's a fair
6575s	amount of wiggle room there we got
6577s	feedback saying it's like hey I went
6580s	I went five and four
6582s	and I didn't go up I didn't go up a
6584s	division it's like
6585s	blizzard why
6587s	um oh it's because it's like okay you
6589s	were actually like just barely into one
6591s	Division and like you actually like you
6592s	did go up it's just it was in all within
6594s	one division so again to try to make
6597s	things like more clear about like what's
6599s	going on and that like yes
6601s	it's like your five and four record does
6603s	mean it went up at the point where you
6606s	actually get that like get that rank
6608s	update after the five wins we will be
6610s	showing you like where you are within
6613s	that particular division
6614s	and
6616s	if you're someone who's between like gm1
6619s	and like the bottom of top 500 because
6622s	there's this point where it's like
6623s	okay how far do I need to get before I'm
6626s	actually in top 500 and that's a not a
6629s	lot of people but it's like enough
6629s	people we've definitely heard the
6630s	feedback that's like I want to know like
6632s	how close I am also indicating how close
6635s	you are to achieving top 500 and I have
6638s	three percentage so again more
6640s	information about like your updates more
6643s	clarity as far as
6645s	here's how you played and these are the
6647s	results
6649s	I really appreciate that and and
6650s	something else that we're doing for
6652s	season four that I'm really excited
6654s	about are the competitive reward changes
6659s	um so can we talk a little bit about
6660s	like what that's going to look like and
6663s	why we made that decision to change
6665s	competitive Rewards
6666s	yeah so we're changing the competitive
6669s	rewards uh and again to be specific here
6671s	these are these uh competitive points
6673s	that you're getting for playing
6674s	competitive uh competitive OverWatch
6676s	that you use to purchase the golden guns
6680s	um this isn't anything with challenges
6681s	uh specifically but like
6684s	um one thing we've
6686s	always noted is that like if you're
6688s	playing in bronze we were like the
6691s	difference between like how many
6692s	competitive points we give you for like
6693s	a bronze or even like a gold and like
6696s	someone who's a grand master
6698s	was really huge
6700s	so a lot of what we're doing is just
6701s	like providing uh more competitive
6703s	points at the end of the season for
6706s	everyone like up through like up through
6708s	Grand Master Grand Master's going down a
6710s	little bit like at the
6712s	um at the end of the season but
6714s	the flip side is we're also just we want
6716s	to reward people who play more like
6718s	during the season
6719s	um and we definitely like saw sort of
6722s	thing of it's like oh
6724s	it's like I've got my like go three rank
6726s	or I'm done like there's no real reason
6728s	to play like competitive play anymore
6729s	it's like hey
6731s	um if you enjoy playing if you enjoy
6733s	playing OverWatch it's like hey here's
6735s	some more competitive points uh so we're
6737s	upping the number of competitive points
6739s	you get for a win and also Tai um
6743s	because you do get a little you do get a
6745s	little bit like for a tie we're upping
6746s	that as well again just to
6749s	um you know give people a little bit
6751s	more hey if you're playing a lot we want
6753s	to like respect the fact that you know
6755s	you are playing a lot because hey by
6757s	playing a lot you're making the
6759s	Matchmaker better yeah
6764s	that's awesome I know another thing
6766s	that's coming in um
6769s	actually this is the mid-cycle patch
6772s	this is live right now but we also have
6774s	competitive mystery Heroes coming to the
6777s	game
6778s	oh boy competitive Mr Heroes we are like
6781s	yes we are really excited about this
6784s	because
6786s	um
6787s	the chaos is going to be so Exquisite I
6791s	know
6792s	Scott to like explain competitive
6795s	mystery Heroes and he just said it's
6798s	chaos yeah it was just gonna be great
6800s	you know it's the kind of thing of like
6802s	you know it's like people like really
6804s	like trying hard and like trying to win
6806s	this but at the same time it's like
6808s	they have no control over the heroes
6809s	they have no control over there like um
6812s	um their team compositions so in some
6815s	ways it's actually the people who do
6816s	well on competitive mystery Heroes we're
6819s	gonna like Flex their like skill in a
6821s	way that like actually normal
6822s	competitive play doesn't because there's
6823s	going to be super flexible and you gotta
6826s	be good at everything you got to be good
6827s	at everything in all situations
6829s	all the heroes all the maps but that
6833s	being said we are like doing something
6834s	we do know that like competitive mystery
6836s	Heroes like it's like we love chaos but
6838s	like we don't like just there are limits
6840s	to our like our levels of Chaos
6842s	we did put another rule that basically
6844s	says you can only like have as when it
6847s	randomizes the heroes it's only going to
6849s	create team composite like the maximum
6851s	of three if any role
6853s	um so that was again sort of like
6855s	prevent some of the like the worst or
6857s	weirdest compositions
6860s	um and then also we are doing um because
6864s	this isn't like a roll cue setup this is
6867s	also going to have the change that we
6868s	made with regards to tanks and open q or
6871s	like non-roll cue cues that sounded
6875s	weird but it's accurate uh it's like I
6877s	have like lower health so again trying
6879s	to make that like overall like
6881s	it's like we want fair and balanced but
6883s	chaotic crazy but crazy
6887s	balance like in a competitive sense like
6890s	mystery here is like how do you balance
6892s	those teams from uh I can't like a very
6894s	competitive standpoint I mean any
6896s	individual game
6898s	the result is going to be like even more
6899s	like even more random right yeah in the
6901s	sense of it's like yeah you'll have some
6902s	total you have some games where someone
6906s	happened to like you know roll into like
6908s	their best hero
6909s	and like you know they they play really
6911s	well on it and maybe like dominate you
6913s	know and like oh it's like oh all I got
6915s	were my off-road Champions and so forth
6917s	yeah that's fine but everyone's having
6919s	that experience yeah
6921s	so there will be there's always like
6923s	some balancing out there and sort of
6925s	It's actually kind of like sort of an
6927s	interesting thing about like Mr Heroes
6928s	it's like when you do lose
6931s	it's like you can just blame it's like
6933s	oh we just had bad cops yeah
6936s	it's like you won't even blame the
6939s	Matchmaker yeah right it's great you
6941s	know it's like it's like yeah just like
6942s	you know I didn't roll a great set of
6944s	Heroes but if you play enough
6946s	yeah they're like all that kind of
6948s	variance right we'll balance out and the
6950s	people that are better at playing more
6951s	of the heroes should rise to the top of
6954s	the leaderboards right that's the theory
6957s	well and um also dealing with
6959s	uncertainty like I I actually play Mr
6961s	Heroes I love the mode it's such a fun
6963s	mode
6963s	um and one of the things that's really
6965s	cool about mystery Heroes is so like
6967s	normally in OverWatch it's very
6969s	deterministic right like you're you have
6971s	control over kind of everything or your
6973s	team does at least
6974s	except whether you win I guess so um you
6977s	know like in games like HearthStone for
6979s	example kind of like dealing with
6981s	Randomness and uncertainty is like a
6983s	very inherent part of the game and so
6984s	you know that is is like a skill
6987s	actually you know it's like if you roll
6990s	um a mercy and your team already has
6993s	three supports or something like
6995s	like kind of like how do you play that
6998s	do you like is it do you want to stay on
7000s	Mercy yeah
7003s	just jump it yeah so there's like a very
7007s	interesting kind of like strategic layer
7010s	that you know it is a little bit crazy
7011s	but at the same time there's a lot of
7014s	thought that you can kind of put in
7015s	that's you know it's very dependent on
7016s	like how good am I with this hero you
7018s	know what's my my team's team comp
7020s	what's the enemy team comp and kind of
7022s	doing that whole like calculus to try to
7024s	figure out like is this actually a good
7026s	hero for me to like kind of try to hold
7028s	on to or not
7030s	or should I just yeah so we think at the
7032s	end of that competitive season the
7033s	people are at the top of the leaderboard
7035s	they'll just don't deserve to be there
7036s	yeah
7037s	Swiss Army knives of OverWatch yes
7040s	absolutely
7042s	um
7043s	so yeah we'll see we'll see we'll see
7044s	how that uh we'll see how that goes like
7046s	I said there's a lot of excitement about
7048s	it I mean there's lots of fans of Mr
7049s	Heroes on the team
7052s	um it's I think it's it's still like our
7054s	most favorite it's like our most players
7055s	it's a really it's almost played our
7057s	arcade
7058s	yes
7061s	yes embrace it this this might be a
7064s	really stupid question uh the answer
7067s	might be super obvious and I just don't
7068s	know but
7073s	uh like obviously that's locked on my
7076s	account like that's my MMR for mystery
7078s	Heroes does that bleed into other
7081s	competitive uh like normal competitive
7083s	play or like quick play so if I say like
7087s	a really unlucky very often in mystery
7089s	Heroes by Rolling off Heroes constantly
7092s	and then obviously I'm losing all of
7094s	those games but I technically do good in
7096s	normal competitive play will the other
7099s	MMR affect that MMR and my account
7102s	overall that's a really good question so
7104s	for competitive modes each each rating
7108s	because it's tied to a rank
7111s	um it's you know player visible those
7112s	are very distinct so like you can do
7115s	whatever you want in competitive mystery
7116s	Heroes and it will not have any impact
7118s	on the other game modes for unranked we
7121s	do
7122s	um have a little bit more kind of like
7124s	of a of a you know shared understanding
7127s	of your ratings
7129s	um because you know in those modes we're
7130s	really just trying to optimize for you
7132s	know like Fair matches with a 50 percent
7134s	win rate but for ranks you know we
7138s	you know we're showing you those ranks
7139s	you know we're not changing those out
7141s	from underneath you so like that rank is
7143s	you know just for competitive mystery
7145s	Heroes yeah so when you lose a
7148s	competitive Mr Heroes you're not gonna
7149s	you're not gonna need to get upset and
7151s	say like oh my am I going to lose you am
7153s	I going to lose GM
7156s	oh don't worry about that I don't have
7157s	to worry about it yeah I'm pretty
7159s	excited to try out competitive mystery
7161s	Heroes here for the chaos so could we um
7165s	could we have OverWatch League Play
7166s	competitive Mr Heroes do you think just
7168s	first I mean yes
7174s	that idea that's I think that's that's
7177s	gonna go down really well
7179s	I'm excited
7180s	awesome
7181s	this has been this has been really
7183s	helpful and you know we really
7185s	appreciate the insight and I know uh
7189s	throughout this we've kind of talked
7190s	about how you know we should have
7192s	communicated this or like we should have
7194s	done this better and I just really
7196s	appreciate you guys taking the time to
7198s	be here and like really outline this for
7200s	the community
7202s	um and you know I'm really happy with
7205s	everything that you guys said you know
7207s	um I appreciate the insight and it's
7209s	been epic talking with you guys these
7212s	are really important topics to our
7213s	community so yeah we should do this
7215s	again yeah yeah absolutely thank you for
7218s	joining thank you guys so much yeah and
7220s	and sharing your thoughts and you know
7223s	um
7224s	we talked about all the factors that go
7227s	into uh changing Matchmaker and like
7230s	this is true for Matchmaker it's also
7232s	true for our game but Community
7233s	sentiment and Community feedback means a
7236s	lot to us we see we hear you and we are
7240s	implementing that into our plans and it
7242s	helps us make decisions so you know
7245s	please keep sharing your feedback
7248s	um we're really happy to have these
7249s	conversations with players and you know
7252s	thank you guys so much for watching and
7254s	we'll see you in the mid-cycle patch
7257s	bye everyone thanks bye thanks
7271s	[Music]
7288s	[Music]
7298s	[Music]
7300s	foreign
7301s	[Music]
7309s	[Music]
7351s	thank you
7352s	[Music]
7371s	foreign
7377s	[Music]

[2023] Overwatch 2 | One-Punch Man Dev Chat

Transcript (by Youtube)

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