Game director Aaron Keller returns with more Stadium insights, from the initial development of the mode to balance philosophy and big plans for the future.
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Wild that they had Stadium in mind before OW2 launched. Let alone from Aaron’s kid.
Cool to see Crossplay being considered! I think that will be fun especially in a non-competitive mode. It’ll be good practice for trying new heroes + builds, too.
This was insightful. But…I’m concerned about Sigma being released next season, and Sojourn the season after. These two heroes just feel profoundly unfair to play against as it is because their effort/risk is considerably low compared to the value they get. Adding weapon power, ability power, abilities…I don’t know how you could balance them in any way to where you couldn’t just instantly delete everything as Sojourn, or just counter every single tank/hero with Sigma. That’s already the case on live to an extent…I’m scared of what they will do to the mode. 
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“We’re currently investigating what it would take to make an unranked version of the mode.”
Completely unnecessary stadium isn’t competitive stop pretending it is and just open up cross play. Don’t split the stadium queue there is absolutely no need. Stop doing dumb stuff!
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Stadium is not competitive in the exact same sense that the current Competitive mode is. Mentioning ethics in queue mixing isn’t as valid (not invalid, just less valid) as it is for the Competitive mode.
Every season you plan to put everyone down to Rookie 5 so why do people care as much?
I love Stadium, would love to play it with more friends across platforms. Even if you had an unranked best of 5 rather than best of 7 I still think games would be extremely long and having tasted getting competitive points to buy galactic weapons I wouldn’t find it rewarding to play an unranked mode!
Random ideas but what about 1) can pc players default have an option to not cross-play which they can opt in for if they wish to and/or 2) because it’s not ranked in the identical sense to Competitive mode (with how you increase/decrease your rank) what about the competitive points earned being in a different pool used for stadium exclusive cosmetics either a different weapon skin or stadium exclusive hero skins?
Loving the mode and would still play it, but it would be nice to rank up in a mode with friends! (I get why that wouldn’t exist in Competitive mode, but Stadium feels like an excellent candidate for it!)
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I want them to primarily because I want them to remove the achievement for using every hero and winning.
Encouraging playing heroes people are not familiar with in a competitive mode is antithetical IMO. An unranked mode allows them to do that there, as well as any other achievements they want to add.
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I am a bit concerned about even FURTHER queue splitting with “unranked crossplay”. Look, I MUCH MUCH prefer stadium for its gameplay and grinding of comp points. Stadium reignited my enjoyment of this game, but let’s be real, the powers/items will be IMPOSSIBLE to balance. This mode simply can’t be taken seriously. I say enable crossplay by default, and if the PC sweats insist on it, they can toggle off their crossplay. I like that stadium is a “casual comp” mode, and would like for it to maintain that energy.
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Thanks for the insight, Aaron! I’m so happy with everything you’ve been putting into the game. As much as a I have my own few gripes with this or that (I am a 6v6 enthusiast, bring back role queue 6v6, I hate open queue. In fact, get rid of 5v5 and just make it all 6v6) I can still recognize this is the best state the game has ever been in. By far. It feels so nice knowing that the game is alive, getting better, experimenting. Thanks a lot. Really.
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Not really. When they announced PvE originally the way I saw that playing out was we’d get the heroes with skill trees and all for PcE and shortly after we’d get an arcade mode that was PvP but with the skill trees. That’s an extremely natural next step.
Like why do this.
It’s already frustrating enough lol
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I meant primarily the part where his kid pitched it. 
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50% of all play time was in stadium? Wow that’s much higher than I expected.
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We’ll have new Heroes added every Season, since we think adding new heroes is critically important for Stadium
hmm… at the rate they’re going it looks like they’ll catch up with the current roster in a bit more than a year. Probably going to have to sit next season of stadium out though because junkrat, sigma, zen every game just sounds like a nightmare rotation. Season after that seems dope though with winston and brig and 2 brand new maps
Game Modes: We’re planning on releasing a new game mode within Stadium named Payload Race
Let’s go this was my favorite in the tf2 days I remember I used to boot up the game and just play hightower all afternoon and we’d votekick anyone who attempted to cap the objective
On top of that, we’ll be integrating a new mechanic that we’ve been calling “Quests” internally. At the start of each match, players will select from a random set of quests that will dole out rewards once objectives are completed.
By rewards I just assume it means bonus cash? Unless they did like permanent bonus stat ups, that’d be cool. Either way I like the idea
This will not only allow players to put together builds outside of a Stadium match and then select them inside a match
That’s nice, I don’t think I’ll be importing any builds but it’ll be good to have a shortlist of my favorite upgrades for each hero so I don’t forget oh yeah I can make the healing field of doom also apply antiheal
This would allow groups of friends to play together and would give us the ability to make other changes as well, possibly introducing a best-of-5 format to the mode.
Yeah I was thinking this too if they do add unranked make it a quicker version of the mode.
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Really hoping Aqua is included alongside Brig, Winston and Sojourn in Season 18, probably in the Mid Season like Freja is.
I’d imagine he’ll be a very popular hero, so having him in Stadium asap feels like a no-brainer.
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I’m so excited for zen and winton in stadium. Look forward to more news on stadium thanks for an amazing mode devs.
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Why add an unranked mode? Just enable cross play competitive for stadium only as your initial post on social media implied. This seems to be walking that back quite a lot.
There are no legacy ranks to consider as it’s a new mode. Aside from platform elitists there aren’t many compelling reasons to deny cross platform competitive in Stadium as it’s a game type with many variables already. Manage the optics/PR with the aforementioned group and it’ll be fine. I believe it would be detrimental to fragment the player base even further with another competitive v casual split, then split again after into platforms.
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Matches are very long, that may play a factor. Rewards (loot boxes in particular) with high engagement requirements and a new competitive system will drive additional interest too.
also I’m really curious why they’re projecting it’ll take 4 months to add endorsements to stadium. I guess there’s some behind the scenes stuff that makes them more complicated than they seem?
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oh shoot I didn’t notice there was a draft mode coming that’s sweet and will really help with the tank problems
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I would vote for QP option and no competitive version than.
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I highly doubt that stadium mode will be that popular, being a ranked mode only, adding it to QP is how it should be.
The numbers are inflated, there is no other explanation.