Coin Line is being replaced with "Win 5 games in Mystery Heroes, Free-for-All Deathmatch, or any Arcade mode" in the mid-season patch along with other Weekly Challenges changes!

This should be fixed... right now! See our patch notes at https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/patch-notes/ for details.

Due to the SR Decay system we launched with in OW2 our SR distribution curve was noticeably shifted left (meaning that there were more lower ranked players than higher ranked players). Most players did not play enough games for their SR and their MMR to converge.

In Season 3 we made several changes that shifted the curve back to the right (meaning that we moved back toward our intended distribution of ranks) to begin correcting for SR Decay’s removal at the start of Season 4. Fortunately, our MMR distribution curve (MMR being the value we use to make matches) has remained the same, meaning that our ability to predict outcomes and make the best matches we can remain unchanged.

The Experimental Card was much more useful in the past when the patches were further apart (months vs weeks). The turn around time to have it patched and reacted to between releases means it isn’t really feasible as a testing for upcoming live patches sort of thing, though hopefully we’ll try to find some fun uses for it again in the future outside of just patch previews.

The most polarizing changes are usually during the hero prototype or rework phase rather than anything for live balance. There have been a lot. The ones that immediately come to mind are Sombra Hack reducing max health for a minute, Wrecking Ball knocking down enemies he rolls over, and D.va having an ability to tether and drag enemies with her mech (launching them tethered to her ult was hilarious and mean).

Neither A or B. Our wider matches aren’t because of any type of scarcity, they’re because the criteria we use to reject candidates are currently a bit too simple. We’re adding additional tuning knobs to correct this issue soon.

This is something we are actively working on and have tinkered with iterations internally! The overall goal here is to bring back some lost synergy in Cassidy’s kit (ex/Fan the Hammer losing some of its ease of use). Magnetic Grenade is rather flat in what it does and while some abilities can be in this space Cassidy’s kit already has a lot of simplicity, making Magnetic Grenade a prime candidate for adjustments. We won’t be in full stun mode like Flash Bang, but are looking at ways to push Magnetic Grenade into an ability that either enables Cassidy to line up more shots or provide newfound utility.

Gonna have to wait a little longer, but I’ll echo something Aaron said earlier that the next hero will have really exciting ways of interacting with your team 👀. Can’t wait to share more soon!

This is an interesting one since I often play Pharah even without Mercy, so I’m probably biased there. Pharah is a hero that is tough to find buffs for (and she performs better on the stats side than most so it always becomes a question of if she even needs changes). She is quite situational as a pick but very capable of taking over the game in the right circumstances and is sort of a harder skill check for the enemy team than most heroes in terms of trying to counter her. I wouldn’t put that all on the Mercy combo, but it is very powerful.

We’ve considered potentially reworking Pharah to make her more interactive, but it would be a dicey one since to make big changes there, it would likely mean she has to lose the air time she is capable of. Her design started as the ‘rocket launcher’ hero but her identity quickly shifted to the ‘always flying’ hero. Losing that would likely alienate a large portion of her fans.

In Season 4 we’re removing SR decay, meaning that in most cases your SR and your MMR will be the same so this should directly help with this issue. We’re also working on a way to display the percentage of players in your division that you are ranked higher than, so that you have a more accurate picture of your progress toward ranking up.

I’ll answer the first question here, we'll cover the Mercy questions in another reply :).

The Moira conversation can be tricky as she offers a sought-out playstyle for many Support players, but she still lacks the utility we want in the Support role. With the Necrotic Orb changes in the beta, it broke Moira’s flow and pushed her in a passive direction. So there’s some things we want to keep intact with any future changes: Moira still having this identity of being able to dish out damage (though maybe tuned down just a tad) and remain a comfort pick for many players as well as preserving her current flow. It’s a tough challenge so we will see where we end up, we’ll share more here as things develop.

We agree that confusion caused by these titles is problematic and we’re working on a solution for Season 4!

There are two issues at play here. The first is that we have reduced SR decay this Season and increased the rate that SR decay is removed when you win games in preparation for removing this system entirely for Season 4. This means that players are reaching their true ranks more quickly than they ever have in OW2. OW2 really does have a different metagame and emphasizes a different skillset than OW1 did, so it is inevitable that some players will find themselves higher ranked in OW2 than they did in OW1.

The second is that our first two seasons had a small amount of unintentional SR deflation, so we've mostly corrected that issue in Season 3. At the highest ranks (like GM where you and your friends are) we've learned we had an inaccuracy in our formula that resulted in an overcorrection.

One of the things we are currently working on is bringing the community into the fold more on the data we are seeing. We want to inform our players as best we can in order to have better discussions around balance changes and the reasons behind them.

That said, we don’t want to be in a place where we publish all current live data as that can have very unwanted meta effects. If players feel stuck playing meta heroes at times, having official live data could only further cement those sorts of feelings, even if players can have success on a wide range of heroes. Data only tells part of the story when considering the experience of playing with or against a hero.

So what y’all will continue to see are some data shared in livestreams, retrospectives that tell the story of hero performance over a season, and quick updates on the top performers in a particular meta. Hopefully these initiatives start to spark more fruitful conversations surrounding hero balance. We’ll als...

Hero passives are super interesting because they often can define heroes and actively change the way the kit is played. Since many passives have fewer restrictions than active abilities (due to the lack of cooldowns), certain passives become the defining feature of the kit. Lucio's Wall Ride is a great example of a passive that completely changes how a character would play. If he lacked wall riding, his style of supporting via harassment and displacement would be significantly hindered, and he would likely focus a lot more on getting value from Crossfade. It's also just super fun to have unrestricted strong movement. Other characters's passives might be less defining compared to Lucio's, but they still can push the player towards playing in specific ways. Sombra's Opportunist pushes players towards eliminating critically injured enemies, but it doesn't define her gameplay loop like Lucio's Wall Ride does.

When it comes to changing hero passives, I think everyone's open to...