Official stats are something we definitely want to do and are actively working on it. May take a little bit though.
Official stats are something we definitely want to do and are actively working on it. May take a little bit though.
What's the overall design goals/pillars for perks?
For some, heroes perks seem to be covering weakness they may have (Pharah's Drift thrusters, or Reaper's Dire Triggers), while other perks seem to allow players more skill expression (Sigma's Massive Impact, or Ana's Biotic bounce), and some perks just seem odd or unfitting for the hero (Sombra's White Hat or Moira's Contamination).
Is there a set philosophy for perks that can be shared with the community? Because it seems like perks are trying to solve a lot of problems in the sandbox.
Perks are mainly about creating new things for your heroes to do, increasing situational viability, and giving you more agency over your in-match experience.
For that goal of increasing the amount of situations in which a hero can be viable: That can come through via shoring up weaknesses against certain heroes, that can also come through by adding mobility so certain heroes can be played on more maps. That goal led to perks like Junkrat's Frag Cannon, Sigma's Levitation, and many more.
For perks like Sombra's White Hat, that is fulfilling a particular hero fantasy that many players wanted us to lean into and we think that's an interesting opportunity the perks system creates. Over time, we'll see how players respond to some of those more off the wall ones.
Are there any ideas to make Mystery Heroes mode less stomping with new perks? Currently perk system is another advantage that a winning team have compare to the team who's currently loosing. I know it's just a non-competitive mode with no big priority, although it has a huge playerbase.
We have a fix for this coming next week actually. You'll get two random perks (one Minor and one Major) each time you spawn.
What were some interesting perks that the team scrapped along the way?
We played with a variety of movement perks for heroes that don't have much mobility. We wanted to see if we could do a movement perk for Torbjorn. I think it only lasted a playtest or two but Torbjorn could launch himself off of his turret by double jumping on it. And the idea was that if you had the Sticky Turret, you could change the angle of that leap and catapult yourself into backlines. Maybe we will come back to that one day, was certainly silly!
In the Spotlight, u/Blizz_Alec mentioned a “refresh” of the perks in the middle of the year. Does that mean 4 brand new perks for everyone? Saw someone mention Aaron said something along those lines but couldn’t find where.
Or is it more like a few perks will be changed out or tweaked if desperately needed here and there before the refresh, and the refresh is more thorough for perks that are less lopsided and not 4 brand new perks for everyone?
The goal there would be that every hero gets at least one new perk to play with! Still scoping out what that refresh would look like for Season 18, but somewhere around 25-50% of the perks changing (some being completely new and some receiving significant tuning). If we have perks that players really love, we don't want to immediately remove those and the refresh would be looking at perks that are more middling in interest.
We'd also like to evaluate how the perks system functions overall at that point too. That could include changes to the catchup mechanics, gain rates, or even a starting level choice. Those are fairly early discussions though and how this season goes will give us good insight of where to take perks next.
Do you view perks as a way to limit the counterpicking and power spikes of certain heroes? If so, do you think they have shown early signs of achieving that and what adjustments would you make going forward? Any examples of heroes you'd want to shore up in that respect?
We did want to add more friction to counterswapping and we've seen that drop quite a bit since Season 15's launch. It'll be some time before players settle on how much less they want to counterswap but in Ranked Role Queue we've seen players swap about 25% less and more so at the highest ranks (Masters+ players swap much more than the ranks below that).
For power spikes, the goal of the perk system isn't to limit power spikes. We actually introduced more power spikes and hopefully more texture to your individual hero's moment to moment gameplay through the perks system. We think a number of our heroes needed bigger moments than they had previously.
Going forward, we are looking at raising up some of the less impactful perks and making sure you feel there's a real choice between your Minors and Majors. We have a lot of opportunity to make that choice more interesting by cutting out some of perks players aren't gravitating towards. Things like Roadhog's increased Pig ...
Read moreHow does the team decided who gets the "fun perks", like (pharah, Kiriko, ana), who gets the "new ability" perks, (bastion, orisa, torbjorn), and who just gets number buffs? (Reaper, Genji) Are the number buffs just placeholders, with plans to go more extreme in the future to match the other heroes?
Well the goal overall is to make fun perks for every hero! That can be more difficult on certain heroes though, as boosting certain elements of their kits can cause issues. Currently, the number buff perks are some of the perks we like the least and plan on changing a handful of those over time. This initial launch has given us plenty of signal on which perk combinations players find compelling and which ones they don't!
Think it's important for us to stay true to our values for Minor and Major perks. Your Minor Perks are supposed to be lighter, nice little upgrades. Your Major Perks are supposed to be transformative. We have some work to hit that goal for all of the heroes and offering more transformative Major Perks.
Kudos to the dev team for trying something so different. For me it seems to be a hit already and I can't wait to get my hands on stadium
Chicken or egg question - did Junkenstein revenge's success serve as the spark for building a new game mode with talents more permanently into the game? Or was this always in the back of mind given the amount of work that has gone into talents since OW2's development?
What was the thinking behind limiting perks down to just 2X2 choices and is this something that you think could change in the future? I personally really enjoyed how more choices really lead to different early and late game experiences
Clash can be really fun when the stars align. Anything you can share about what you plan to do with the mode in the future?
I was really looking forward to see the old 2CP maps reworked. Oh, and speaking of old maps, any hope for Gothenburg to get a second life one day?
Like you, I also believe Clash is awesome when it all comes together! We actually spent a good amount of time on Clash's scoring before we made the decision to pull it from Competitive. Even with scoring changes, we believed the mode needed some fundamental geo changes to points A+E to perform better as a Competitive mode. Currently we are experimenting with building another Clash map from the ground up with a different approach to the layout to see if that solves some of the core issues the mode has. That's all very early, but hopefully some significant geo changes along with scoring changes can get Clash into a great spot.
Which perks had the highest impact on hero performance? Will perks have a higher priority in terms of balance than base hero perks, or will we see a combination of both going forward?
Some of the winners so far have been Ana, Bastion, Pharah, Ramattra, and Winston. When it comes to individual perks: Ramattra's Vengeful Vortex, Mauga's Firewalker, Zarya's Energy Lance, and Soldier 76's Agility training have all been quite impactful. It's important though to look at the combination of your Minor and Major perks, what rank thresholds players are using them at, and how quickly a hero is gaining their perks. There's still quite a bit for us to dig through there!
In the immediate, we mostly plan on balancing perks in order to make them feel more impactful. There will still be some core kit tuning alongside that, but there's still a meaningful amount of change we want to inject into the system throughout the next few patches. Tuning to perks and actual perk swaps (hoping for some in 16.0) are included in that.
What the hell are they cooking
We are taking a few good swings here. Excited and even slightly nervous, looking forward to sharing with y'all.
Twitter is cancer, good for him.
Posted below, just a small social media break!
Hey hey! Just taking a small social media break and seeing how it goes (it's only been 12 hours ha). Will definitely still be communicating with y'all but maybe through official comms more than usual. Preference for those types of comms has usually been streams, bit more difficult to have quality conversations on twitter.
Completely unsurprising, if I had to read the comments under his tweets every day I would delete my twitter account too.
EDIT: Also important is that his LinkedIn is the same, if this was anything serious, that would change first.
Posted below, just a small social media break!
Hey hey! Just taking a small social media break and seeing how it goes (it's only been 12 hours ha). Will definitely still be communicating with y'all but maybe through official comms more than usual. Preference for those types of comms has usually been streams, bit more difficult to have quality conversations on twitter.
It's a bug and a fix should be going live tomorrow at 11am! Sorry about this one
Hey! I have 2 Mercy questions:
- Is the team looking at Mercy at all for any changes/small buffs?
- What is Mercy's pick and win rate now compared to Season 3?
Back in Mid Season 9, the DPS passive was reduced and a dev blog stated Mercy wouldn't see changes as she should 'be more reliable moving forward' with the reduction. That nerf was reverted and Mercy stayed the same.
The community has been ranking Mercy as a D Tier support for a few Seasons now and she's in this weird spot where people don't like playing against her, with her, or as her anymore. I and many others still enjoy her most out of all the other heroes but she doesn't play nearly as fun as she used to after the changes that've been made to her (mainly nerfs) and the game over the last year. Thanks!
Read moreHi there, I think one of the most obvious questions people here will have is what are the plans to balance out roadhog. With the Midseason tank adjustments I’m sure the general sentiment is that hog is an outlier for survivability and dmg amongst the tanks, especially since Orisa isn’t there to keep him in check now.
The headshot dmg reduction and his soft rework from before means his survivability is through the roof, and his dmg is as high as ever. What are the plans to reign him back in?
I will also personally say I don’t think the solution is to buff Orisa, rather nerf Hog to keep him in line. Aside from Hog I think the tank balance is pretty great right now otherwise.
Also is there going to be something done about the overbearing passiveness of heroes like LW, that will simultaneously not interact with the enemy team at all whilst also not providing any offensive utility for his own team? I think for all other 9 players in the lobby it’s a pretty mise...
Answered the Roadhog question in a different place, but yes changes coming soon.
For Lifeweaver, one of the discussions we are having right now (actually this week) and have been having for a while is around the friction that comes with switching between his healing and damage. Giving him more flexibility here would be a great boon to his capability within team fights. Additionally, we've experimented a lot with his Petal Platform. Personally would love for that to be a more attractive area to stand on as a teammate (whether that be through a buff the platform gives you or something else) but there's a lot of learned behavior to work through as allies hop off the platform quite often.
Read moreOk, I'll try to ask some general questions. Free to choose which one to answer: ^_^"
In February I noticed that you had received great feedback on the maps after the first hacked mode. but I was wondering when those ideas would be implemented (especially for flashpoints);
Personally, I liked Clash Mode. But I also wanted to know what kind of results you received that require modification in your opinion. or if you have noticed any optimal results to maintain, or imitate for other game modes;
Heroes in reworks: how is it going for Reaper? and which characters are you eyeing for a possible gameplay adaptation in the future? the community seems worried about Symmetra, generally.
Mirrorwatch has shown quite a bit of popularity both functionally and entertainingly: will there be more modes like this in the future?
A general concern about events: so far we have had some unpredictability about the return of ...
These fall outside of hero design but can talk briefly about the first two questions
Hello,
With the major tank changes (e.g. armor changes, knockback changes, headshot change, and individual balance changes) that released last week, I am very curious: have there been any noticeable, immediate shifts in the win rates and pick rates amongst tanks? Has there been any collateral shifts within the dps and support role because of the recent tank changes? I know that, for instance, after the recent armor changes, some heroes have become weaker against armored tanks (i.e. tracer and reaper) while others have become significantly stronger (i.e. cass and hanzo). I'm interested in knowing how the team's behind-the-scenes statistics have measured lately as a result of the recent tank changes—that is, if it is possible for you guys to share it. If not, understandable.
Some of this is related to meta happenings or balance changes but also related to armor changes/headshot reduction for Tanks. From what we can see the biggest winners (in terms of their performance delta) of the patch are: Ana, Junkrat, Pharah, Roadhog, Sigma, Wrecking Ball, and Zarya.
Many heroes stayed relatively similar while a handful saw a decrease in performance (Bastion, D.Va, Mauga, Orisa, and Reaper).