We all know what it’s like when one, ONE, thing in the game gets changed. It shifts the balances up and down on ALL heroes and Comps. Sometimes, we spend weeks with a newly broken balance issue before it is tweaked.
Now imagine making the game 5v5, reworking most heroes, changing fundamental and philosophical foundations of the game itself, adding PvE, plus skill trees for each hero, and adding new passives to each hero category.
Now. remember how hard it was for them to fix or retweak something after changing something in the game? How much balancing and tweaking you think they will need in order to finalize Ow2 PvE and PvP ?
They did this. They knew what they were getting themselves into. They just bit off a massive chunk here… hope they can chew it all up before release. 
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My guess is production focused solely on pve and in game content alongside graphical upgrades, New hero’s, etc.
Now that it’s supposedly finished, they shifted their focus to hero balance and 5v5, which tells me they haven’t decided much on 5v5 balance as of yet. They’re trying to get a gauge on how things play and have used the owl players as a way to steer the ship, as it were.
That’s my guess anyway. So yeah they have their hands full for sure
It’s actually a pretty good and even a logical guess. It would only be logical to assume that balance comes after all the main content creation of PvE and PvP.
What worries me is the second thing you touched on… the fact that they did not really know how to balance 5v5 and jumped right into it.
I assume they will need to change EVERYTHING in order to achieve this since the game was actually balanced around 6v6.
They were just hoping they could wing this I guess? 
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There’s actually only a few characters/abilities in OW2 that are difficult to balance.
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Be that as it may, you should still want your game to be noticeably different from its predecessor. They haven’t delivered on that yet.
I think even if we just had MAJOR changes to all characters across the board that they would prefer that over what we’ve been shown. If nothing else, it would been something shiny and new to talk about. We’re getting this slightly from the reworks that do exist but it’s their timing of showing what they’ve changed that I believe is causing the confusion.
Pretty much, I think when 5v5 is finally established, the game will eventually play and look completely different. I suspect that’s the stage they’re currently in and shifting balance in that way.
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That is not actually how Overwatch balance works. The truth is, for a game that depends on team synergy and choice making, the entire game and battlefield changes over the most simplistic changes.
Kind of like saying… If you remove a small gear from a machine, suddenly you broke the entire machine. Unlike other games, Overwatch is highly dependable on your team and their abilities. One change, actually changes things across the entire board.
One change to Hammond, suddenly Mccree is OP. One change on Mccree, Suddenly Phar and Echo are OP, One change on Air units and what do you know, Hammond is Op again.
^ That is the sad truth about Overwatch balance in a simple term.
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I’m talking macrobalancing, you’re talking microbalancing.
I’m talking about getting the game to a state where all it needs afterwards is numbers tweaking.
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Well this is the most insane thing I’ve read today. You’re aware that everything in the game interlocks with everything else? It’s all gears that have to mesh cleanly or the thing hardly works at all.
Op, they’re essentially making a new game. Reimagining overwatch as esport-ready instead of casual-friendly like it was at inception.
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I personally think they should’ve been more radical about balance changes for overwatch 2.
Make everything flashier, faster, more interesting. Make abilities fun to use and have characters where people would say; “that looks fun I want to play them”, doing this would give people who were on the fence before about it being, “The same as overwatch 1”, a reason to buy it. It would also make for major news to talk about which helps the game as a whole since there’s more talk surrounding it.
They should’ve focused more on fun and new things with 5v5 than nitpicking balance.
Imagine Truly tanky tanks and deadly dps, as well as strong supports in overwatch 2. Market it like that. It would gain so much more attention than just barely saying anything about balance going into 5v5.
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I agree. The question is, can they do it, and how long will it take them? People do not have a lot of faith in their balance teams these days. lol
Well, I need to do some updates, because I didn’t anticipate the hack/shieldbash nerfs.
But here’s my previous draft on how they could fix things.
[OW2] Balance Design Blueprint
But the main difficulties are going to be
- Hammond
- Earthshatter
- AntiHeal
- Sharpshooters
- Sleep Dart
- Flashbang
Other than that, the changes needed are pretty straightforward.