Game Director Aaron Keller reflects on Season 2 and hints at updates coming to Overwatch 2
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Despite it being a brief post, hereās an even more brief summary:
- Ranked SR is confusing
- Grouping with friends has issues
- Matchmaker has problems
- Changes coming in S3/S4, which will be talked about "Soon"TM
- Progression loop doesnāt feel good enough, they are working on it. Changes coming for that in S3, will be announced next week.
- Ult refund when swapping reduced to 25%, and a lot of Ult costs are going to be adjusted
- More frequent balance patching with hotfixes
- One-shots and frustrating hero mechanics probably going to get reduced. Feedback on that would be appreciated.
- Feedback is good. They are listening.
Hereās my take:
- Ranked SR is confusing
- Get rid of the hidden SR and 7/20 system. And otherwise just fix matchmaking. (And get rid of map pools)
- Grouping with friends has issues
- A lot of this is matchmaking related. But personally Iād like to have read/write access to the Notes field from battle.net, without needing to Alt+Tab. Too often I see a random teammate, and then weeks later I have no memory.
- Matchmaker has problems
- When are you going to tell people that Matchmaking issues are largely because of a lack of Support players?
- Season 1, it was pretty clear there was some Queue Time issues due to a lack of Supports.
- And itās pretty obvious that thereās a direct tradeoff between a Matchmaking Speed and Matchmaking Quality.
- Changes coming in S3/S4, which will be talked about "Soon"TM
- Looking forward to it.
- Progression loop doesnāt feel good enough, they are working on it. Changes coming for that in S3, will be announced next week.
- Skin tokens would be nice in the battle pass, instead of skins for a hero you probably donāt play
- Maybe bring back non-monetized lootboxes. For rare tier skins etc.
- Also equipable skinned in-game UI would be nice as an additional cosmetic. Like the old Winamp skins.
- Ult refund when swapping reduced to 25%, and a lot of Ult costs are going to be adjusted
- I think a lot of people were expecting it to be 30% but exclusive to the DPS Role again. Especially SVB, where he comments that counterswapping on Tanks/Supports early into the match is too impactful. Where as itās much less of an issue on DPS. (Also this frees up more room for Support Role passive changes).
- More frequent balance patching with hotfixes
- One-shots and frustrating hero mechanics probably going to get reduced. Feedback on that would be appreciated.
- If it were me, here would be my take.
- Widow: Glass Cannon
- Hanzo: Turn his damage partially in to āDragonFireā DoTās so itās not an instant kill, if Supports or medpacks are nearby, also make SonicArrow deployment more obvious to the enemy team. Buff his Lunge distance if needed. (Note, DragonFire would basically be the same as Ashe Dynamite fire, except blue)
- Sojourn: Just remove the headshot entirely on the non-Ult rail shot, since sheās always going to have the problems of being a highly mobile generalist, with a small hitbox that is really evasive with ADAD spam. Unlike Widow/Hanzo she doesnāt really need to cut her mobility while sniping.
- Junkrat: 90 damage mine with no falloff that gets 120 damage when it lands on a surface. Make the grenades do less damage per bounce on the ground (Not wall bounces). Give him 225hp to compensate. Also allow him to regain control of his character instantly after using his Ult, if he moves afterwards. (Partially based on this feedback)
- Pharah: Reduced rocket explosion radius. Then something like more health, more mobility, or maybe no selfdamage from rockets but it can be used as a selfknockback tool. Also 100% immobility during Ult is a bit silly, maybe some mobility or the capability to cancel the Ult somehow.
- Mercy (In regards to PharMercy): Have separate healing values for teammates in the air, and teammates on/near the ground, with the increased grounded heals being indicated by a āmagic circleā.
- Feedback is good. They are listening.
- More Reddit AMAs would be nice.
- Maybe have a dedicated temporary forum section for Experimental Cards.
- Also, Iād suggest having more verbose patch notes, and use that as a mini-blog platform. Accompanied by KarQ style YouTube/TickTock short videos covering the patch changes. Maybe have an in-game splash screen to notify people about the patch changes, with some pictures of the affected heroes.
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I see promisesā¦.Iāve seen beforeā¦
Make actual CHANGE Aaron
(Still good to hear from you)
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Buffing D.Va 
I hope. 
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A Reaper right click after 7 years would be pretty nice 
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Oh hey, Aaron still here. Cool.
Lot of āstuff is coming soonā, not much actual detail or substance. Well, at least itās communication.
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This was such an empty post. Nothing new except the ult changes.
I was hoping after the leaks we would get the s3 trailer a few days early. I want to see that Kiriko skin in action.
Would also love to see more themed skins.
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āKnow that weāre listeningā
Really?
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skill issue obviously.
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I even forgot that Aaron is the new vice president tbh
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They trademarked ācoming soonā?
From the article:
āMore details on short-term changes and long-term vision will be coming soonTMā
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Something might happen soon, but in the meantime your credit cards are welcome!
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You owe us a 10h Yule Log stream. I wonāt trust you until youāve passed the fire trial.
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Pretty sparse on info, but I at least appreciate the direct communication. This is the type of thing weāve been asking for, I just hope it can be more informative in the future
Alright, so we just keep waiting I guess.
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It feels like another ādonāt worry, weāre listening!ā post with no actual stuff in itā¦
Iām willing to give you the benefit of the doubt though. I know you care about the game.
But personally iām giving you til the beginning of season 4 to sort the balance out of this game. The balance truly is in the worst state itās ever been IMO. Luckily, the game is still funā¦ But some of the descisions the team have made when it comes to certain things completely baffle me. Sojorn having the kit of 2/3 heroes in 1 being one.
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What about the support role?
we are still waiting for any infromation on the long awaited support buffs to all the characters in the role to make them impactful but instead we have gotten nerfs and buffs that dont mean anything. is the support role still even acknowledged and there just isnt and ideas to make any changes or what. I would love to be able to give change ideas or even program them in, i just want to see some acknowledgment of supports no matter how small because we have been promised and dumpstered time and time again
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Dont do thatā¦
Dont give me hope.
Why 25% ult charge though, I feel like 15% or 20% would be better .
Still , itās a good blog post .
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Balance frequency is a big topic. Bug fixes to hot fixing should enable us to address balance faster and would have enabled us to tune Hog earlier in S2. Weāre still planning an initial and midseason patch each season, but now have the full ability to fill in between those as necessary.
I feel like Iāve been in an echo chamber for the past 4 years but the echo has been getting louder and louder each time. This is nothing more than hot air at this time.
Aaron, if this was WoW your reputation with me would literally be on the āhatedā level. You have a LOT of reputation grinding to do to show what you say is true. Itās going to take at least 1 year of continually doing rapid balance changes. Even with the rate you say you want to roll them out, I think is to slow.
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