https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/when-its-done-overwatchs-director-on-the-games-finished-yet-fluid-launch/
This is a quote from Assistant Game Director Aaron Keller in 2016.
Fascinating.
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Choices were likely not made by him and made by corporate. See it happen all the time where corporate forces decisions on something they dont understand the ramifications of and move on
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Plus it might have been true at that time with only 4 supports and not so much anymore now that we have more heroes in the pool
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They might not understand some things, probably dont even get video games, but they understand one thing well.
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Of course, the game has arguably changed a CONSIDERABLE amount since then. I donāt think in 2016, anyone envisioned that it would become what it is today.
With the game having changed so much since then, a quote from them today would probably be something like, āwe feel that locking characters behind the free battle pass isnāt bad, since there are so many playable characters, there will never feel the need to switch to one of the locked ones.ā
Still kind of funny to read that though, though.
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Pretty much. The bean counters are in charge now.
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Many of their expectations didnāt line up at all with how people actually ended up playing the game. You can find a lot of things that sound super obtuse from the team over the years.
Competitively speaking, this balance issue he mentions wonāt exist if leaks are true that you canāt play without acquiring them. The balance issue in casual modes probably exists, but I wonder how often people actually counterpick (or care about it) in casual modes. I also genuinely wonder how much it ends up mattering in casual modes with a focus on less hard countering. Is it something that sounds crucial but ends up being a non issue for most, like losing role swaps with 222?
Feeling gated from playing with friends is really the only one that strikes me as problematic if youāre coming back after a while and just wanna hop into comp. I want 2 hear moar.
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And Papa Jeff once said we wouldnāt be losing 6v6, yet here we areā¦ Nothing is certain in gaming, and never say never should be a mantra.
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That was before they realized that there are enough suckers that will continue to spend money even if they make bad choices. Fortnite pretty much killed any hope of major publishers not trying to suck their customers dry.
Jeff said in 2019 that overwatch 1 servers would remain active until players no longer wanted matches. Blizz isnāt the company that keeps their promises anymore. Theyāre worse than EA/Ubisoft at this point, because they suckered people into believing they were different.
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Yeah. Itās kind of like taking a quote from 2016 that says āwe think 6v6 is the best type of mode for this game. We have no plans to change it to 5v5, as we think 5v5 bad.ā
Itās like 
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It is definitely someone from above pushing this because it is clear that it is done for the sake of the monetization model.
I really hope they donāt go as far as adding hero bans or even deleting heroes considering they are already walking the wrong path but seems like they are trying to copy what other games are doing.
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Jeff Kaplan said they wonāt delete heroes though!
Oh wait, old statements donāt matter anymore 
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Imagine thinking game design decisions donāt change over time. Especially when talking about a game that has gone 5v5, f2p, locked roles, etc., etc., etc.
Right OW2 is a corporate decisionā¦ They wanted a sequel so they got it
All of the changes couldāve been made in OW1
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The Activision machine does not care about how players feel. They care about what is going to generate them revenue. These decisions are often short sighted, but they also donāt care about that either because they can always just make a new game that more suckers will buy into.
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The devs are just the talent.
Robert Downey Jr doesnāt control the Disney board. He just makes movies for Marvel.
The big decisions are made by corporate/managment.
The thing you like about OW are almost certainly the Devās work. The things you hate are almost certainly corporateās fault.
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Iām acknowledging the possibility of them doing drastic, stupid things, because their old mentality clearly doesnāt hold up.
I get that changes have to happen, but in this particular case I think Aaronās quote still applies pretty damn well. Someone said that statement was made when we had 4 supports, as if 8 supports is some huge number that dwarfs it in comparison.
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he also said the same for DM and invisible heroes. xD
I feel like the game is losing a big selling point to the competition by not having all heroes available at all times.
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The thing is, they intentionally designed the entire game around hero swapping mid round and everyone having access to heroes.
Have they reworked the game to such a degree that those design decisions no longer apply? 100% no.
They can change the direction they want to go with the game, but they would also need to drastically change the game itself before what heās saying is no longer applicable.
And plot twist, they havenāt. And most people donāt want them to either, because having hero swaps and all the heroes is one of the gameās appeals.
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Itās so funny. I was watching a video by some content creator that was saying you shouldnāt bother with team play if you want to climb, because higher rank players are more selfish than lower ranked players. I thought it was a silly take, but I can definitely tell you that in low ranked qp, people counterpick and then play synergies all the time, and you always end up with someone trying to shut you down by going pharmercy or whatever.
Iām not implying anything. Your comment just brought that to mind.
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