How often is often enough for updates and new content?

General Discussion
1

I hear a lot of people complain that Overwatch doesn’t release patches often enough, or new maps often enough, or new heroes often enough, or new events often enough. We’ve all heard that a million times right?

Now I don’t play any other team shooters or MOBAs besides this one, although I have played a LOT of MMOs in my day, and I feel like I get new maps and heroes and patches on this game more often than almost any other game I’ve played, and in all of those other games I typically expect to pay money for that new content, or have as subscription, not just get it for free with my $40 initial purchase.

So when people constantly complain that all of these things aren’t often enough or fast enough, I am forced to wonder…what do people think is the correct pace then?

Can anyone out there who does play other games that have very comparable content environments to Overwatch tell me if Overwatch really is unusually slow or negligent compared to the industry standard?

Or to those who think it’s too slow, how often would you expect a new free hero or map or event or mode or patch in order for you to think “yeah, this is a good pace.”?

Or are these people all just a bunch of brats?

EDIT

If you feel overwatch get is wrong, please name any comprable game in existence that you feel gets it right, as in they release content at a more satisfactory pace than Overwatch does, like one you can point to as a model and say “see them, do it like they do”.

If you can think of NO GAME that meets that standard, then you might want o consider that your expectations are the problem.

Since most people don’t seem to be aware:

Overwatch has released 1 hero on average every 120 days since launch, that’s about every 4 months. That pace was maintained until Sigma, at which point it slowed so as to allow for a large multi-hero dump with overwatch 2, and I think most of us can agree (even if we are just PVP players and wont buy the PVE mode) that OW2 launching with several heroes at once is probably a good thing.

Overwatch patches 2 to 3 times most months, on average a little more often than once every two weeks.

Overwatch releases 2-3 new major feature upgrades a year, things like Role queue or Group Finder or Deathmatch mode or replay system or Workshop, this has been a pretty steady pace since launch.

2 Likes
2

In b4 people claim the console cert process takes more than a few days

3

small monthly changes with big changes every new season would be nice

7 Likes
4

Overwatch Seasons are about two months. So a big change every other month? What do you mean by big? Large balance patch, new hero, new map, new mode, seasonal events? I think most people would agree that that is an unrealistic pace to sustain. I don’t think any game keeps that kind of pace, at least not that I know of, and especially not for free content.

Is that really what you meant? Or did I misunderstand you?

5

I don’t expect Blizzard to pull content non-stop. I would expect Blizzard to give windows frames of weeks to see how the meta is doing and change a few numbers.

Waiting months for any kind of change is ridiculous, if Blizzard can see shields are too strong, then why not nerf shields a bit after 2-3 weeks and go from there? If they see dive for almost a year, why not start nerfing mobility a bit, instead of wasting months creating a monster that will not only counter dive, but counter everything else and create her own meta?

Nobody says go ham on the nerf hammer the first few weeks of the meta, but changing numbers a bit so that meta doesn’t become so oppressive after those first weeks would help a lot. Better than waiting months to look for a way to change it by nerfing the hell out of those characters.

4 Likes
6

It depends on the game and on what platform. Like mobile gacha games get update content a lot. they are mostly trash content just to do for the week and not much thought put into them. The main content like story, hard trials, etc, often takes months, even in mobile games.

For MMORPGs, usually you only get small minor content, while the big one comes out once every 4 month or longer. Big ones such as new system, new hero/class, etc.

B2P is another story. they can take very long, since their new content are in the form of DLC/Expansions.

7

The only content i want added into the game is heroes and that would be every 2 months till 50 or 60 heroes are playable, the only patch i want would be balance patches which mainly focus on the latest released hero and that would be every 2 weeks till the game feels the way it should with fluidity and allow the prior hero released to be in competetive. My thoughts on this is get the job done and then focus on the other details.

8

I think they shoot themselves in the feet with the PTR.

They make almost zero changes once it goes on PTR and wait 3+ weeks to actually release balance changes people are hoping for most of the time.

I don’t know how many critical bugs they find in the process, but it seems like a flawed system.

8 Likes
9

But…they do patch about every 2 weeks on average. There has never been a period in the life of this game when we’ve had to “wait months for any kind of change” as you put it. Do you think every 2 weeks is not fast enough? Is that really realistic?

I know you’re saying “I know they update every 2 weeks, but why is the update that is coming next week is never to address the thing I am unhappy with right now this week”, but do you think that’s really realistic? Surely whatever they bumped to make room to address the thing you are upset about right now this week would just have other people mad that that previous issue got bumped, right? Surely you can recognize that it takes time to program and develop things and whatever patch is dropping right now is not to address the issues that occurred a few weeks ago, it’s backlog stuff from a cycle or two before that. That’s usually just how these things work, do you know of another game that does it better? Can you name that game? If I go check their forums what will I find their player’s saying?

10

The first year of content support was fine.
The rate at which maps, heroes and events came out was reasonable.

After year one, however, the wheels came off and things started and ever-increasing decline,

Second year rolled around and several events had nothing new besides skins added.

Also there was no new events to fill out the rest of the year, which many expected.

Then the following year, NONE of the events changed. New skins was the only reason to care.

Then they stopped releasing maps at the regular rate.

Then they stopped releasing heroes at the regular rate.

That’s where we are now, lucky if anything besides skins appear for the next year and a half.

4 Likes
11

for me the dream patch cycle would be

2 weeks on PTR, then move to it LIVE, then as soon as that one is in LIVE, already put a new PTR Patch with more changes

lets give it names to make a better explanation

Current live patch: 0
PTR patch: 1

Patch 1 remains 2 weeks on PTR
Patch 1 is moved to LIVE
PTR now has patch 2 with a new set of changes
Patch 2 is 2 weeks on PTR
Patch 2 is moved to LIVE
PTR now has patch 3
ETC

like that,

its not about the frecuency but the reliability and the ability to have a structured cycle that can solve issues quickly

lets say you pass a PTR patch that makes a char OP, then we will have to wait not only a month if not more for the patch to be put on PTR that fixes it, but then we have to wait another Month of it to come to live, THEN you still have the chance that it didnt solve the issue

12

I asked you to tell me how often.

So how often would these things be released that would make you satisfied. Give me time frame.

I also asked if Overwatch was comparable to other similar games or not? Is there a game that does it better? Can you tell me the name of the game? I’ll go check their content release schedule and compare.

If you’re only going to answer in vague generalities then i am gonna assume you don’t know what you are talking about.

13

I answered. The rate they put out content in the first year.
Then they starting pulling support.

1 Like
14

HOTS used to do patches about twice a month (before blizzard threw HOTS esports under the bus). To me that was a perfect amount of time between patches . OW takes waaaaay to long.

15

I think they could stand to speed it up a little, but I’m sure there are limitations to what they could do.

For instance, I think they could manage 4 heroes a year. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. It’d certainly help with meta cycling, which is a persistent issue.

I wouldn’t mind seeing smaller-scale but more-iterative balancing, too, even if just to PC due to console cert procedures. Like, make small balance adjustments every other week direct to live to tweak heroes rather than come in with these sweeping, sledgehammer changes.

Map schedule is mostly okay, they could probably do a little more on the cosmetics front, and they could probably do more for events (related to cosmetics).

Generally, I’ve found that compared to other games that released free content, Blizzard’s content release is either slower or smaller, or both… and not really any higher quality, either, which is the lame excuse I see thrown around sometimes

16

But… they kinda don’t. They do a real patch with some changes every month, most of the time those changes are nowhere near close to shake the meta. They do an update between those changes to fix 3-4 bugs. And honestly, i couldn’t care less what other companies do, because most of them don’t have the resources of a company like Blizzard.

And no, i’m not saying that.

17

I would say 2 small and one big so that each month something is getting fixed or tweaked.

18

It’s not even the release of new content, its how long it takes for them to fix bugs and tweak balance changes.

19

Flashback to when Watchpoint: Gibraltar’s floor disappeared.

1 Like
20

Content they can take their time with, I honestly don’t mind that. Personally I think that OW puts out higher quality stuff than say League, and all things considered, I do believe their being somewhat reasonable, albeit a little more on the slow side.

I just sorta which that they would put out number changes more often than once every other month. At this point it just feels like they’re holding off on basic number adjustments until they have some big new thing to release alongside it, when the reality is we just want the game fixed and don’t always need the carrot on a stick to come back to the game if they address these problems.