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I am under the impression someone complained about being banned has been removed from the discussion in this thread.
One that's more behind the scenes, when we first implemented Ashe if there were any BOBs alive at the end of the match they would vote on the end of round cards.
What!? Why'd you remove that?
Yeah I know it’s pretty awesome. Some comments on the bug in our bug tracker were saying we should keep it. :)
Friendly reminders about official resources relating to account actions:
Read moreHey everyone, have a slightly different topic to post about today – Let’s talk hack-related bans.
Over the course of Overwatch’s five-year history, we’ve been monitoring and taking action against software used to cheat the game. A number of teams are dedicated to not only actioning accounts found guilty of hacking, but also improving our systems to help with automatic detection. Overwatch developers, security engineers, cross-functional risk experts, and multiple customer service support teams work in tandem to frequently and meaningfully take action against bad actors.
When we talk about anti-cheat, we are always cognizant of some risks involved:
Read moreI have a few simple questions that have been frequently asked by members of the official forum community that I really would love to be briefly addressed. Mostly related to Competitive or competitive integrity in Overwatch. Some of these I myself pretty well have a good idea of the reason, but it would be great to have reasoning for certain decisions that define Overwatch's competitive scene.
Why no backfilling or pauses in Competitive? Why is there no backfilling or substitutions in Competitive Play? Similarly, why are there no pauses for Competitive (if not a backfill) for any leaver that appears to be a disconnection or technical issue?
Any update to 21:9 widescreen monitor compatibility for Overwatch? Way back in the Fall of 2016, former Game Director Jeff Kaplan specified that the Overwatch team did not want to increase the frame of view setting to go beyond 103, making it difficult for those with (ultra widesc...
I can answer a few of these!
Why no backfilling or pauses in Competitive?
There's no backfilling because we're pretty sure no one would want to do it. If you ever backfill in a game and lose shortly afterwards, you're not happy. If we allowed players to backfill without consequences to their SR, its giving them a license to throw or act negatively. There's simply not a lot of great options there.
As far as pauses, and I think you're asking about pauses due to disconnect/leaves, we have to consider cases where players might abuse the rules in an attempt to harass someone or waste people's time. The best way to try and minimize leaves is to not provide any kind of outside motivation for them to occur. We're never going to be completely leave free, due to internet outages, personal emergencies, random acts of chaos by cat, we just want to make sure and minimize them as much as possible.
Is there a reason for the "minimum draw"...
Read moreWhat was one of the biggest obstacles you overcame when you started working on overwatch?
The Overwatch team was formed from the ashes of Titan, and much smaller in size. While we learned a lot during that development, it certainly was a blow to our confidence, as any set-back can be. But the one thing we knew we had from the beginning was each other and we bonded together extremely well. Getting that confidence back and making it to the success of the Overwatch announce at BlizzCon was a big hurdle to overcome. Our trust in one-another and the incredibly open and supportive atmosphere we have on the team really enabled us to get over that.
Read moreI think that the team had made great decision with changing the team composition to be 5v5, but I think most reason why people get upset on that change, is because of the tank synergy we have right now. Has the team thought about forgiving that in any way, by idk changing dps maybe?
One of the core goals of Overwatch hero design is to create these fun synergies and combos throughout the entire roster. It certainly sucks to lose some of these combos, but a lot of game design is making a call to decide if what you are gaining is worth what you are losing. In this case, after significant playtesting, we think its more than worth it for the benefits we gain out of 5v5.
It seems that the tanks with OW2 go more in brawly direction than protect and peel direction, which I am scared makes the game more 'watch out for yourself' than 'watch out for your teammates', and I don't like this direction. Should we expect loads of changes from ...
That's disgusting.... ;)
Read moreHello there! Thanks for doing the ama :3
ow-state question:
- Should we still expect Paris and Horizon maps back in Overwatch 1 or you kep them for Overwatch 2?
- I think that the team had made great decision with changing the team composition to be 5v5, but I think most reason why people get upset on that change, is because of the tank synergy we have right now. Has the team thought about forgiving that in any way, by idk changing dps maybe?
- It seems that the tanks with OW2 go more in brawly direction than protect and peel direction, which I am scared makes the game more 'watch out for yourself' than 'watch out for your teammates', and I don't like this direction. Should we expect loads of changes from what we have been shown on the stream in terms of tanks?
- Are endorsements also a thing in OW2? Are there any plans on improve this system/make some changes? Cause right now it seems like it does not really matter, cause I, as level 4 endo...
I think that the team had made great decision with changing the team composition to be 5v5, but I think most reason why people get upset on that change, is because of the tank synergy we have right now. Has the team thought about forgiving that in any way, by idk changing dps maybe?
One of the core goals of Overwatch hero design is to create these fun synergies and combos throughout the entire roster. It certainly sucks to lose some of these combos, but a lot of game design is making a call to decide if what you are gaining is worth what you are losing. In this case, after significant playtesting, we think its more than worth it for the benefits we gain out of 5v5.
Read moreIt seems that the tanks with OW2 go more in brawly direction than protect and peel direction, which I am scared makes the game more 'watch out for yourself' than 'watch out for your teammates', and I don't like this direction. Should we expect loads of changes from ...
How will OW2 impact the workshop? Im sure it'll come with great technical difficulties but do you plan to keep the workshop for OW2 or even improve it?
Thank you for so much great memories :)
We don't have any plans to remove it. If anything, we'd like it to be able to leverage some of our improved and new features to make it even better. We don't have a full picture of Workshop for launch, at the moment, though.
Will the green overhealth still be removed by EMP? How do Brigitte and Torbjorn’s temporary armor factor into that?
Currently, no EMP does not remove over-health. But, hopefully as evidence from some of my other answers, things are very heavily in flux right now, especially in regards to CC and Sombra, so its possible we'll make it work on all over-health.
Brig and Torb gain over-health instead of over-armor now, but it acts like normal health and so doesn't have any innate damage reduction built into it anymore. We'll have to compensate for that as needed, probably by giving more health for them.
Though I will go one step further and ask, "should armor even work the same way it does in OW1?" Its fairly complex and if you ask an average player how exactly armor works most of them will just say something like "oh i dont know, it reduces damage taken somehow". We haven't changed anything with it yet, but its on my list to look at and maybe simplify into something like, "armor health takes -X% damage".
It has further implications if we do that, like bigger hits no longer fe...
Read moreI want to ask about Sombra. Can you share anything about some ideas you've went through when it comes to her kit for OW2? I'd imagine her hack might be oppressive in a setting where you can just hard focus it onto the Solo Tank of a team. And maybe there is a goal to push her towards more of a DPS as her kit is almost Supportive in nature with Hack.
And a fun follow up, have you ever considered making her a support at any point? If so are there any ability ideas you tried you'd consider sharing? :D
She actually started as a Support! I talked about that in a different answer already though.
For OW2, I've done some iteration on her in regards to how she might work in a world where there is less crowd control effects for Damage heroes. Recently we've run two different playtest ideas for her:
These were interesting tests, but each had their own share of big problems.
For #1, it felt weird/bad to just never be able to hack enemies. Shes supposed to be this hacker but her hack was relegated to health packs mostly. This is...
Read moreRead moreI am excited for 5v5 and I trust the overwatch team to make an excellent game no matter the challenge. But I would love to hear your thoughts around two topics:
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- Are you planning on taking steps to reduce the number of smurfs?
Given 5v5 gives each individual more power, This might give smurfs even more power over a lobby. In the current state of overwatch, if I duo queue in gold, I am surprised if I don't see any smurfs in the lobby. Having smurfs in the lobby dampens the rest of the lobby's individual agency over winning/losing which defeats the purpose of a competetive mode. Are you guys considering any ways to reduce smurfs in competetive? Such as needing phone verification, or maybe even make every unique player composition of a duo/trio etc. have their own standalone SR rating, instead of just averaging their individual SR.
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- I am...
Good questions.
We're definitely looking to combat what I will refer to as "abusive" alt accounts, ie players who repeatedly create new accounts just so they can play against lesser skilled opponents. Part of this is improving the matchmaker's ability to determine your skill even faster, detecting those that repeatedly abuse alt accounts and taking action against them, and looking at ways to limit access to additional accounts. We can't go into all the details here, but it's something that's being actively worked on.
Do remember that many "smurfs" are just friends who want to play together but aren't of the same skill. The matchmaker doesn't just simply average their SR together when considering how to matchmake them, and its also good to remember that the other player might not be a smurf at all. They might just have gotten a lucky streak of head shots. Skill is not a static thing, it ebbs and flows, and we all have our moments we feel like gods of Overwatch and ...
Read moreHi! No question, just a thank you for making such an amazing game thats really changed my life. I trust you guys with what youre working on, and have an amazing anniversary night!!💙
<3
I find it hard to relate to any of the Heroes in Overwatch, due to their age. Will there ever be a child playable character? I'd love someone like Shotaro from Gigantor.
Hey there, I think we're unlikely to put a child playable character into Overwatch given the core gameplay of the game. We really love Efi though, and it's possible we'll continue to see younger lore characters incorporated in the same way she is.
Cheers
Read moreSome of the changes and new features to Overwatch 2 look incredible, such as the higher detail, new way of rendering eyes and hair, and one I especially remember from the gameplay trailer and Rio mission, the giant null sector ship in the sky. Now, all these changes look amazing, but as a solely switch player, I am starting to get worried that the switch will just bit be able to cope with these upgrades. PvP will probably run smoother (with only 9 other heroes in screen, maybe a B.O.B., with the 5v5 change). Is the game still planned to release in the Nintendo switch, and if it is, what compromises are having to be made (I expect that they would be mainly in PvE.
Thankyou for reading and I hope someone can answer my question! u/blizz_jlafleur and u/billwarnecke I expect would be the best for this question :)
Also keep up the good work the game looks awesome, I think you are doing a great job ...
Great question. As hardware has advanced since the launch of Overwatch, we are extending the OW2 engine with more high-end features. However, we're also working hard to make sure all of our platforms get the best experience, even in PvE. Switch is a little more challenging than some, and we'll have to make some compromises there. For that reason, some of the higher end visual enhancements might not be visible, there. We'll focus on making sure all of the gameplay-related features get in, first, and then accentuate with additional features as much as possible.
If anything, I would guess that off-tanks would have an easier time adjusting to OW2's new Tank role than main-tank players.
Does that reflect a shift in the team’s focus toward a product that competes more directly with other traditional FPS games? As a tank main, I’ve been concerned that the role may lose some of what made it special in the first game, with tanks moving into more of a “fat DPS” role in OW2. One of my favorite things about Overwatch is that heroes like Reinhardt and Winston provide a gameplay experience I can’t get anywhere else.
I would say overall, yes there is a shift towards at least slightly more of a raw FPS game. However, Tanks and Support (and even some dps like Doomfist) have always been more about abilities than just aimskill/shooting. This isn't going to change. I feel like this is core to what makes Overwatch what it is, reflecting many different playstyles and empowering many different types of skilled players in different ways. Its always been a balancing act for us, but for a while during OW1's new hero additions it was really starting to feel like we were pushing maybe a little too far away from our FPS roots.
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