Update, looks like this system is good to go !
Bill Warnecke, OW2’s Lead Software Engineer covered how the system OW1 used to rapidly deploy numbers-only balance changes, broke, in OW2. And that hopefully after the December 6th patch goes through, this shouldn’t be a problem going forward.
So when they manage to fix this they’ll be able to change numeric values of heroes without making it a whole update/getting slowed down by cross progression?
Assuming the fix they did to it works, which it probably will. They should be able to do numeric balance changes pretty easily moving forwards.
We’re building additional automated tests
first sensible thing I’ve heard this team say in a month
maybe at some point they’ll figure out how to regression test the sound code too (FOOTSTEPS)
Why is there even crossplay into the PC pool to start with, most people drop match the moment they see that console peasant icon on a teammate anyways.
alright I can understand that
still doesnt explain the lack of sojourn nerfs tho
ultra rare footage of blizzard being transparent and communicating with their playerbase in a genuine way
Is this… communication? Wh- what’s going on?
Snide remarks aside though, these sort of comments from devs are very welcome and I appreciate it
I guess they’ve built another character that’s subpar or middle-of-the-pack for most ranks while being a horrible monster up in high rank and/or organizaed play. And this one happens to have a one-shot in their standard kit. Hooray, great success! 
And the “pixel perfect” hitreg that is not pixel perfect at all (projectiles stuck midair with no hitreg).
Well at least they’re actually telling us what went wrong. More communication is always better
Well, it takes a bit of figuring out where it is. But their communication is getting a lot better.
So they’re gonna find nerfs for Sojourn on this patch and not the next one… right?
No idea dude.
Maybe they had something in mind that requires EXE file changes.
Basically admitting they rig mid-match by ‘hotfixing’ in-game params.
Real-time micro-balance that smooths out skill differences in the lobby.
Can we please have ppl like Bill leave the industry? We really don’t need a complicated mess of buggy code that doesn’t work and isn’t necessary. It’s this kind of makework bloat, and paying for it in salaries that don’t make sense, that is sinking the ship. Back to the proven oldschool way of deciding what changes are reasonable, and pushing them every 2 weeks.
Balance shouldn’t be in a constant state of flux and artificially shaking the meta.
Rigging lobbies for engagement shouldn’t be your content delivery.
I basically look at “Hero Balance” as the goal of increasing the simultaneous amount of hero choices that are worthwhile+unique. If the amount of hero choices that are worthwhile+unique gets too small. Then they work to increase that amount of worthwhile+unique hero choices.
And here’s a whole longwinded design document from League of Legend’s top executive balance guy, basically saying that.
GameDev.net - Techniques for Achieving Play Balance
Hard to tell from your wording if you approve or disapprove of that design approach. But once they get this “number-only balance tweaks” system back online. It should be a lot easier to do that.
I approve the 2 week (+/-) balance patches that tune things here and there.
I support the human-level ‘artistry’ and intervention.
I disapprove of slurping real-time analytics and injecting these ‘hotfixes’ as part of an ongoing loop. This leads directly to DDA rigging. If you’re unsure what DDA is, read up (there are several threads and patents). “Numbers-only” balance tweaks is how we got that symmetra stealth nerf on her dmg. It was egregious, unforthcoming, and should not be made standard.
Micro-tuned parameter updates are complex, bug out, harder to maintain (in all likelihood), less transparent (they don’t have to communicate what the changes even are or the rational for them).
Why can’t the live-service be simple, reliable, robust, transparent, etc. All those good words, instead of the hidden, obfuscated, complicated, potentially used to rig/engage/monetize, etc…the bad words (for gamers).
What he was talking about with hotfixes, is that, let’s say the game updates the movement speed of a character.
They need to update that on both the clientside, and the serverside. Or else the clientside prediction stuff. (i.e. “Rollback Netcode”) isn’t going to be working properly.
And if you are aware of Fighting Games. There’s this whole big new thing, where Rollback Netcode, is the new hotness for that genre. Like they add it to older games, and the playerbase size explodes in size because of it.
Apparently, Overwatch has been using Rollback since it started.
Just a a few weeks of playing against Sojourn, Zarya, Genji and Sombra. That’s fine, right? Right?
Nice. Good to know, I was worried it was intentional to give season 1 the “distinct identity” of “play zarya or i throw, get off junkerqueen or i throw”. I wish they simply explained this at the time they announced the delay. Their communication strategy is absolutely awful.
I get that, but why are they not simply updating the movement speed of a character, listing it in the patch notes, and shipping it in a bnet client update that users have the option of accepting.
Why the stealth real-time inject? That isn’t benefiting the players. That’s obfuscating the changes and leads to more nefarious DDA rigging as I have explained.