Overwatch Blizzard/Developer Post Directory - Last Updated: 9/12/2019

[SuperSciFi-11419]

RIP Briggette. Rippity Rip.

And also I really like reaper, but 50% is too much.

[Kaedi-11739]

There were two key interviews in the Overwatch Creator’s Residency today with Game Director Jeff Kaplan.

• Jeff Kaplan interview with Emongg (Discusses Meta, Competitive, Game Features) - Jeff Kaplan - 1/7/2018 - Twitch
• Jeff Kaplan interview with Fran (Discusses Lore/Media, Competitive, Game Features) - Jeff Kaplan - 1/7/2018 - Twitch

On that note, I have moved all Interviews into a separate section in the Development & History section on the third post since most of those interviews have a huge variety of subjects discussed. If you want to discuss these interviews specifically, please see this topic:

Jeff Kaplan on Emongg's & Fran's streams (Concluded) - Talk about Competitive Changes & More

The interviews with Jeff Kaplan have concluded. See the notes below for highlights. I will update links both streams with the starting time indexes once the streams are completed today (which won’t be for several hours still). These interviews will also be listed in my dev post directory later as well. Update: both streams have concluded with the VOD now available. I have time indexed these video players to start at the interviews. Topics discussed on Emongg’s stream: Click here for Emongg’s …

[Kaedi-11739]

Minor new update discovered on Reddit earlier this week, apparently the feature of being able to transfer ownership of a custom game lobby will be introduced in the 1.33 patch (note we are currently live on patch 1.32 and the PTR is testing features for 1.32.1).

• Jeff Kaplan confirms the ability to transfer a custom game lobby will be coming in patch 1.33 - Jeff Kaplan - 1/9/2019 - Reddit

[Hypercype-1308]

GASP! WYOMINGMYST GOT HIS GREEN TEXT!

[Qendel-1288]

I noticed this too. Wonder when that happened. Awesome that it did.

Keep up the good work, OP!

[Kaedi-11739]

Hello everyone, getting caught up on new developer responses this week.

First off, during the patch launch yesterday Bill Warnecke explains the difficulties in having a smooth patch launch for all parts of the world.

@BillWarnecke

Hey there, sorry for the login queue today. As of now we’re all clear, but we know the disruption when you’re ready to jump in and play is frustrating.

One challenge we encounter supporting a global game is finding a perfect patch time. At any given time some regions are busier than others. The reason we patch during Americas business hours is to make sure we have all the proper support staff here at Blizzard HQ to help if we encounter any issues. Unfortunately that means we land during a busier time for EU players.

Making the patch process smoother, and hopefully queue free for all regions, is a high priority for us. The problems we face on patch days can be complex, but I promise we’ll keep doing our best to fix the issues.

Cheers

Today Geoff Goodman appeared in the Overwatch Creator’s Residency and discussed a lot of hero balance topics with IDDQD (former pro player of the San Francisco Shock) on Twitch.

Click here for the Goodman/IDDQD Interview

In addition in a topic that discussed this stream, Goodman followed up with some key responses for channeled damage attacks and for how Reaper gets around with Shadow Step.

@GeoffGoodman

The armor change I am referring looks like it isn’t going to make this next patch, so it will probably the patch after.

Those particular changes won’t be massive, but right now all “channeled” effects (Zarya, Symmetra, Moira, Winston, etc) are reduced by a flat amount like any other source of damage, but the size of the damage packets is purely based on how fast they tick, even though the tuning of the weapons are done via a general DPS calculation. For example, Winston’s tesla cannon was initially tuned way back when to have a faster update rate because it felt a lot better to use that way. However, currently that also means he does a lot less damage to armor.

We’re getting some new tech which allows us to separate armor reduction amounts for these effects from their update rate. This doesn’t mean we’re going to just go through and buff all of these weapons necessarily but we are going to go through them all and make sure we’re happy with how much damage they are all doing to armored targets.

@GeoffGoodman

We still may do something with Shadow step in the future, but its not likely to suddenly become something you can do in combat like Tracer’s blink.

It’s meant to be a way to sneak behind enemy lines to drop on them or otherwise ambush them. In the past we’ve buffed it towards further reinforcing this direction like increasing its range and reducing its sound range.

@GeoffGoodman

No this only affects how much armor reduces these weapons.

[Kaedi-11739]

Hey everyone, sorry about the delays in updating the directory (as I have been dealing with some serious issues outside of Overwatch).

Jeff Kaplan revealed more details about why Fall Damage is not in the game (he has answered this previously on the old forums long ago).

@JeffreyKaplan

We actually tried falling damage in early development of Overwatch. We ran into problems with characters like Widowmaker, Reaper and Pharah. With Widowmaker, it felt strange and unintuitive to be able to grapple to high places but not be able to jump down without taking damage. We found ourselves grappling back down to lower points, which was awkward. Pharah was really odd. If you didn’t feather your jets right before touching the ground you would splat. And with Reaper, we kept teleporting to high locations with no ability to get safely down.

For awhile, we kept exempting characters from fall damage. But pretty soon, it felt arbitrary who would take fall damage and who was immune so we removed the mechanic completely.

Michael Chu dropped a small, but obvious lore tidbit regarding certain heroes favorite choice of music…

@mchu

Pharah loves classic rock. Reinhardt loves David Hasselhoff.

I don’t think I can take him seriously right now.

[Tharnne-1217]

Okay, so my friend and I were playing Comp, and we were losing like crazy. One, we were getting in with people who were nowhere near our skill level, and Lucio feels so bad to play. D.va also feels super squishy to the point where she’s being torn to shreds by people who shouldn’t even be able to kill her that quickly. Just pointing out those complaints, because this game has gotten so much worse, much like WoW.

[Mr1Jigawatt-1922]

i wanted a refund first day i purchased a license for overwatch.
Well, I didn’t get one so i’m stuck with it.
When i play quickmatch its me and a bunch of other newer players versus the most experienced. game lasts momentts we dont get stuff all exp.
And its the same humiliation every game with the same players.
Mr crossbow can fire 3 times whilst i receive 1 hit kill. video replay shows 3 shots fired. I want my money back because this is the only game thats ever done it.

[Pidima-1759]

im just seeing if ive been silenced

[Hypercype-1308]

Okay, so my friend and I were playing Comp, and we were losing like crazy. One, we were getting in with people who were nowhere near our skill level, and Lucio feels so bad to play. D.va also feels super squishy to the point where she’s being torn to shreds by people who shouldn’t even be able to kill her that quickly. Just pointing out those complaints, because this game has gotten so much worse, much like WoW.

i wanted a refund first day i purchased a license for overwatch.
Well, I didn’t get one so i’m stuck with it.
When i play quickmatch its me and a bunch of other newer players versus the most experienced. game lasts momentts we dont get stuff all exp.
And its the same humiliation every game with the same players.
Mr crossbow can fire 3 times whilst i receive 1 hit kill. video replay shows 3 shots fired. I want my money back because this is the only game thats ever done it.

im just seeing if ive been silenced

Ummm…

Welcome to the forums, I guess?

If you really want to complain about something, please do so by creating a new thread, and not commenting on an existing one. You also need to ensure that you are being respectful to other people in your thread, otherwise, your posts may be deleted, your thread may be locked or deleted, and you may be silenced.

@Pidima, seeing as this is your first post on the Overwatch forums, you haven’t been silenced.
Being silence in-game and on the forums are two completely different things.

[Kaedi-11739]

@Hypercype-1308

@Pidima, seeing as this is your first post on the Overwatch forums, you haven’t been silenced.
Being silence in-game and on the forums are two completely different things.

Actually officially, any account action in game should result in an automatic forum suspension. See this post here for details.

@Community Manager Josh Engen

In line with our priority to minimize toxicity in Overwatch, players who are silenced or suspended in-game will not be able to post on the new forums. We will be reviewing and updating our current rules and guidelines so forum enforcement may seem stricter than before (for example, players will no longer be able to bump their posts or threads). Players who contribute to the forums in a constructive way will be granted additional features and permissions such as link previews, images, gifs, and embedded video posting.

Source: Overwatch Forums

I say “should” because I am under the distinct impression that this feature is not working as intended by Blizzard based on the number of people complaining about getting actioned here on the forums. (Of course, I have no way of knowing for sure, that is for Blizzard to handle.)

[Hypercype-1308]

Oh ok, I don’t think that the function is working as intended.

[Hypercype-1308]

[Jeff Kaplan details plans for the Winter Wonderland 2018 seasonal event - Jeff Kaplan - November 2nd, 2018 - Twitch] ([https://clips.twitch.tv/AttractiveSuspiciousOilBIRB ](https://clips.twitch.tv/AttractiveSuspiciousOilBIRB))

Hey Wyoming, could you just fix this up? Thanks.

[GreyFalcon-11737]

In this topic,

I wonder if it would be helpful to move the top post down by one, and use the top post as a currated Summary of recent dev activity. Such as forum quotes, YouTube/Twitch embedded links.

Just like the top 5.

[ZangetsuShin-1273]

Please rescale reaper lifesteal, its quite unfair the he is categorized as a dmage hero but can tank since the lifesteal is very insane. he just heals the incoming damage he recieves in 2 hits of his weapon even from a far… Or atleast rescale his damage if you dont want to rescale his lifesteal. its not enjoyable anymore that he can cheese out heroes almost any mission because of the buff and high damage while support heroes like Ana gets nerfed almost that its not its not viable to use anymore.

For your kind consideration. Thank you!!

[RSthe13th-2998]

Dear Sir/Madam

I hope that i do not be considered racist or hater for my following comments. I simply want the game be more joyful and pleasant for me and others.

“”“Could you please kindly dedicate a SERVER just for Russia.”""

based on my many hours playing Overwatch (mostly arcade and quick play and lessen competitive) I came across followings to back my reasons for my request:

1-Most Russian players refuse to communicate in English and despite 5 team members with non-Russian language, they continue to speak Russian even when 5 other players ask not to or at least not to talk (i know about muting but this game is about communication). they communicate with other Russians even if one person, in Russian and you can hear two people talking when other players cant understand.

2-they get toxic (very toxic) when tides are not in favor (in a gold rank, all players are relatively the same, therefore there is no need to call others noob, idiots or same things with (in many cases) adding inappropriate words usually starts with F)

3- they leave during games if they feel they are going to loose.

4-they refuse to cooperate with the team. I know every body is free to pick the hero he/she wants, but they can point out their words more politely with no game play sabotage, or ask others more politely.

5- many times i have come across Russian players who are throwing and some times just playing emotics with other Russian player when 4 other players are in a team fight.

I need to point out that not all of Russian are like this and I also have two Russian friends in Overwatch who they have same opinion and Many of my friend who plays Overwatch have same problem.

I hope i dont look a hater and I really hope that this matter would be solved.
It could have been solved if players reported such cases and not ignorantly forgo it.

Best Regards

[Kaedi-11739]

Jeff Kaplan appeared on the forums mid-day today. Talking about past experiments with role queue and team comp expectations.

@JeffreyKaplan

We actually tried a mode we called “411” because it limited comps to 1 tank, 1 healer and the rest DPS.

It was not fun and we didn’t enjoy it. The way the game is tuned, the importance it placed on the lone tank or lone support was too significant. Also, we’ve all evolved as players since 2016 and we’re much better these days at melting the tank or melting the healer than we used to be. Once your lone tank or healer died, it felt like you were forced to completely regroup with no chance of pulling out a win.

It was a good experiment for us to try and led to a lot of good discussion. But yeah, wasn’t fun…

@JeffreyKaplan

Well, just speaking for myself here, but I expected 1 to 2 tanks and 1 to 2 supports with more variance. I also expected more hero switching. Naively, I didn’t expect “maining” and “one-tricking” to be so dominant.

We imagined a world where players would be ok with Torbjorn on defense but not playing him on attack. The maining/one-trick mindset led to us having to rework those characters to fit with how the game eventually evolved to be played. I guess what I am saying is we hoped to be able to create more highly situational characters with the thought that players would switch in situations where those characters weren’t as viable.

We like the direction things evolved and in hindsight, it seems obvious that they would evolve that way. It’s not that one direction is good or bad… they’re just different directions and we adapted to what the playerbase was doing, rather than fighting against their instincts.

These will be sorted into the Role Queue and Other Game Feature Responses respectively in the General Game Features section.

[Kaedi-11739]

During the Overwatch League matches, Michael Chu dropped a lore bit identifying Hammond as more of a mechanic in terms of his profession.

@mchu

He’s really more of a mechanic, but if you had to choose between those two, he’s more engineer than scientist

[Kaedi-11739]

Another post in the books. Kaplan compares the ping system seen in Respawn’s Apex Legends to features they tried in Overwatch during development.

@JeffreyKaplan

Respawn did such a good job with the Ping System in Apex Legends. It works really well.

Back in early development of Overwatch, we actually had a very similar ping system. Ours was inspired from MOBA’s like League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm.

We eventually removed it because of a few issues.

1. With 6 people on the team, it got very spammy if more than a few people were using it
2. The geography of Overwatch maps as well as the engagement distances is fairly constrained. This made pinging upwards challenging and often frustrating. An example is standing at the gate of point A of Temple of Anubis and trying to ping the upper ledge above the gate entering point B. Our engagement distances tend to be in the 10-30 meter range (for perspective it’s about 45 meters all the way across the entire dojo in Hanamura B). In Apex, you have very long engagement distances and very big maps… it makes it easier to ping below you

It would be fun to revisit the system and see if we could make something like that workable. We do have some designs for improvements and customization to the communication wheel that we’re trying to get in. But we’re always appreciative of feedback and suggestions.