Streamer Flats interviewed Game Director Aaron Keller
Video:
Summary: (keep in mind this interview had a rather conversational tone and I tried to condense down into a simple Q/A format. Many of these points were around 5 minutes of talking condensed into a few sentences )
Q: Thoughts on the season 9 balance changes
A: Overall happy with the changes and community response. They were initially planning to do a set of changes once a year, but now are considering doing so more often, perhaps once at the start of the year and once at the middle. Interesting trivia bit came up here: apparently a talent system was considered for PvP before the launch of Overwatch 1
Q: How is the new ranked system doing
A: Biggest goal was transparency, feel like it accomplished that. Group restrictions are being lowered season 10. Believe that match quality will go up for players in narrow groups.
Q: Is a streamer mode coming
A: Yes, something along the lines of “true server side anonymity”, will give more details in the next developer update video being released in a few weeks
Q: How does the mythic shop work
A: You earn “mythic prisms” in the battlepass. Each battlepass has enough mythic prisms to unlock and fully upgrade 1 mythic skin
Q: Would they add a mythic or higher tier for other cosmetics types
A: Basically made it seem like that wasn’t something they have planned but it’s not off the table
Q: What is the state of Tank
A: Admits that the dps passive especially affected tank. Would potentially consider making it have a different percentage against tank, but for now they prefer to keep it straightforward. It is tough to have a single tank be powerful enough to take space on their own without having that player feeling too much pressure
Q: What inspired the dps passive
A: The role of the dps is to secure kills and this helps them accomplish this. The old dps passive wasn’t very useful. It also stopped supports from having an outsized impact on matches
Q: What is the current state of support?
A: Believe support has been taken down a notch, but they’re at a good middle ground between how strong they were last season vs how weak they were at the launch of OW2. Essentially they had to give supports more ability to hold their own, but they pushed it too far, and the dps passive brings it back into the line
Q: Thoughts on hero bans?
A: It has some potential benefits. It could reduce the negative impact of hard meta heroes. It could also add an additional layer of strategy to the game. It is not however something they have planned, just something they’re discussing.
Around this point flats entered rapid fire mode because they were running low on time, so the answers became a lot less fleshed out
Q: Is more lore content like cinematics coming?
A: It’s something they’re always looking to do. They have something small but unique and “cute” coming for Venture. More comics are also coming soon. He coyishly said that he “can’t talk about” anything larger that they may or may not have planned
Q: What heroes may need a rework
A: Wrecking ball is coming the soonest. They are looking at two dps heroes as well, but he won’t say which since they are a bit further off, but he referred to the one that is further along as a “he”
Q: Would they consider making balance patch cycles faster (e.g. every 2 weeks)
A: The benefit of having longer waits between patches is it allows each patch to be more impactful. They think there is a good opportunity for a smaller patch towards the end of a given season where there is usually a relative lull in content
Q: Would they consider having workshop modes in the arcade
A: This is something they considered ever since custom games were added, but it just wasn’t something they ever though there was much community desire for
Q: Customizable menus
A: Nah
Q: Next big thing they are working on
A: Can’t say
Q: What are they doing about XIM
A: They know there is an issue, but can’t talk about it because it’s never a good idea to give exploiters any information about what they’re planning
Q: What are the communication plans for next year? Will we get a roadmap?
A: There will definitely be more dev update videos. Didn’t have anything else to say
Q: Map reworks?
A: There was a good community response to the maps listed for reworks. Spawn rooms are a big problem on a lot of maps. Specific areas they are considering changing include Numbani second attacker spawn, Circuit first attacker spawn, the Circuit hill and it’s sharp turn, first/third Havanna attacker spawn, first Havanna point sightlines, Havanna third point sniper perch (Won’t be removed but nerfed), Dorado first spawn, the Dorado church/courtyard, Dorado flanking route being too long. Trivia: Aaron is the person who designed Dorado, King’s Row, and 2 points on Oasis.
Q: Map bans/voting?
A: It’s not something they have scheduled but something they are considering. If they did something like this it would most likely be a system where you joined a match and got 3 or so maps to vote on. One concern is it would increase leavers when people didn’t get the vote outcome they wanted. They would definitely put this in quick play first.
Also interesting flats said after the interview that he was told not to ask about 6v6 as it would bog things down and there was nothing they could say about it.