Overwatch

Overwatch Dev Tracker




13 Oct

Comment

Originally posted by Jupiit

Thanks for doing this again!

I'm not a very competitive player, but I'm curious to know if the playtests included any changes that were directly made in consideration of OW2's new heroes and how they might affect PVP? For instance, altering one of the current heroes in a way that compensates for a new counter they might have, etc. (no details of course, more of a yes or no question!)

I can't give out any specific details, but the answer is yes! There aren't too many instances of this but also in some cases, there are important balancing factors which haven't been changed yet in those playtests builds because of new mechanics and interactions with unreleased or reworked heroes.

Comment

Originally posted by happychallahdays

What is your philosophy on how “tank-buster” heroes (such as Reaper, Echo, Hanzo, and more) should be approached in OW2? Is the role of tankbuster obsolete when there is only one tank?

I think it's important to have a concept of these high damage output heroes, which each have their own limitations and tradeoffs, though not necessarily to fulfill the role of specifically taking out tanks and barriers. This is especially true with the format change to one tank per team in 5v5, because it can give players more options to respond to a variety of challenges they may be trying to overcome in game (more depth of team comps can lead to deeper gameplay). We have taken some tuning steps to make abilities like Storm Arrows and Echo's beam less lethal against tanks but still keep them powerful in other situations.

Originally posted by BarstMain

How did the Bastion rework perform in these play tests compared to your expectations?

Its funny, I actually tried to throw him some buffs right before the build went out but I missed the deadline slightly.

He has been pretty tricky to tune with his rework, but it was great to see him playtested by these great players. I feel like his new design is solid, its really just a matter of getting his numbers into a good place now. Since this playtest, we've buffed him in a number of ways: He moves faster in sentry mode, his ult starts dropping faster (though the projectile moves slower so you can see it a bit more), his recon fire rate has been increase, and other buffs.

The tricky thing though, is when playing him it can feel like you still get thrashed pretty hard because he is such a large hero, he is very easy to target and hit with everything (especially when he gets discorded, etc). There is a lot we can tweak with that as well though, such as increasing his passive (Ironclad) to offer more protection while transformed. We also have new tuning knobs ...

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Originally posted by Aspharon

The change to 5v5 will of course require hero changes across the board, but I'm primarily interested as to how you're going to be looking at supports. With them having both one less tank to heal, and one less tank to protect them, how are you tweaking the supports for the new game, in broad strokes?

So far, broadly speaking, we've found that supports are often more safe in a 5v5 environment because there is one less tank trying to dive and take them out. There are instances where this isn't true, like Sombra and her rework trying to assassinate them, or being sniped easier without a lot of barriers to hide behind, etc. In those situations sometimes its a matter of just trying to position more carefully or maybe Sombra just being bit too OP right now :P

Initially we were worried that supports without mobility to escape might be weak in this environment, but so far we've actually seen Zen/Ana being very strong instead of weak, because of the nature of their offensive capabilities in a 5v5 environment.

Comment

Originally posted by Drewbawb

Many pros involved in the matches described Zarya as particularly weak in the tank lineup. Some even suggested it felt like she was nerfed with the bubble cooldowns.

Do you have plans to adjust/rework her based on that feedback?

This is an interesting one we're keeping an eye on since internally the resounding feedback has been that Zarya is far in the other direction and many think she is too strong and constantly high energy with being able to bubble herself twice.

There's a couple details that get overlooked with this new shared cooldown set-up in that the duration of the barriers have been extended slightly (we started at 3 seconds and its gone down to 2.5) and the cooldown timer starts ticking immediately, unlike on live where the barrier has to be destroyed or time out first. So if the barrier isn't broken your cooldown is coming up quicker than on live by some amount. The current internal cooldown is 9 seconds and it's easy to tune that lower if she isn't performing well, but at some point it breaks down and too many of those barriers quickly gets annoying to try play against.

The flexibility to barrier yourself twice in succession or an ally twice is also powerful utility in itself...

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Originally posted by Automated-Waffles

Were ultimate generation rates lower than in the live game? It felt like there were less ults in general, although this might just be due to 1 less player and the 25% less ult charge from tanks.

The biggest change here is the less ult gain from tanks. We haven't actually modified and ultimate costs outside of this change (and the implicit 5v5 changes, obviously).

Having ults happen less often was something we were targeting early on, and this tank change largely accomplished this for us by itself. This is something thats super easy to iterate on though, and im sure we'll be tweaking it throughout the game's development/beta etc.

Originally posted by DoucheyHowserMD

Do you foresee any heroes changing roles or would you like to keep everyone where they are?

This is something we've been experimenting with, and talking a lot about. No hero has moved roles yet though, but we've started testing Doomfist as a tank (as previously mentioned)

Doomfist's kit is full of crowd control effects and mobility, which makes it difficult to tune and balance him as a DPS in OW2. As a Tank though, he can keep those key properties to his kit since those can fit nicely into a Tank role (mostly the crowd control stuff).

Of course this means he'll be losing some damage and gaining some defenses. This is still being tested and iterated on, so I dont have a ton of details on it yet as it is still in the early stages. Some of the early feedback so far is that he's not really feeling like a tank without having at least one active defensive button (his main defenses are passive atm), so thats something we'll probably try next.

Comment
    AndyB on Forums - Thread - Direct

Hiya Booka.

We’re aware of the bug with Valk and are working on a fix for a future update.

Unfortunately I’m not prepared to comment about your Switch performance issues, however I can certain pass that feedback along to the team.

Thanks for reporting!

The spookiest event of the season has returned to Overwatch, bringing with it a slew of sinister new skins guaranteed to transform every battlefield into a graveyard smash. Some of the treats you might find in your Loot Boxes this Halloween include Echo’s blood-chilling Vampire Bat attire, a grim new getup for Bastion, and the styled-to-slay Vampire Hunter Brigitte.

To celebrate this frightful event, we caught up with concept artists Daryl Tan and Morten Skaalvik to discuss how they approached designing three of the latest Legendaries.


Halloween Terror gives the minds on the Overwatch team a chance to indulge their spookiest artistic senses. From ‘80s slasher flicks

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12 Oct

Post
    Denis on Forums - Thread - Direct

Disclaimer: This is not a complete list of all currently tracked issues affecting this build of Overwatch, rather this is a targeted list of some known specific issues with this release.

Patch 1.65


Heroes

Ana

  • Subtitles are missing for one of Ana’s “No” voice lines.

Brigitte

  • Brigitte’s Rocket Flail can appear translucent with the Vampire Hunter skin equipped.
  • ...
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Comment
    AndyB on Forums - Thread - Direct

Hey all,

We’re aware of this issue. It will be addressed in an upcoming update.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I feel your pain since I use this Highlight myself.

Post
    AndyB on Forums - Thread - Direct

Overwatch Retail Patch Notes – October 12, 2021

A new patch is now live on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch. Read below to learn more about the latest changes.

To share your feedback, please post in the General Discussion forum.
For a list of known issues, visit our ...

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Comment
    AndyB on Forums - Thread - Direct

Just to manage expectations: no, that is not confirmed, alluded to, or even coyly winked about in my post.

Comment
    AndyB on Forums - Thread - Direct

Hi there Jesterskull,

Skins team ≠= Hero Design and Balance.

Two completely different teams, two completely different disciplines.

Also, about Bastion…

Comment
    AndyB on Forums - Thread - Direct

Generally speaking, our updates these days go out at 11:00 AM PDT/PST. Sometimes may vary, but it’s fairly consistent.


11 Oct