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

In this topic, I am providing a categorized directory of all relevant Communication from Blizzard Entertainment regarding Overwatch. This includes all relevant forum posts from the Overwatch Development Team, community managers, and customer service representatives from both the new forums and the old forums. This also includes any relevant Reddit posts, Developer Update Videos, News Articles, Technical Support Articles, Third-Party Interviews, etc. Basically, anything that is not in an organized place. Please note, Patch Notes are not included.

Click here to see how this Guide works

Things I will not include

  • Any posts that hint or preview features or changes to the game that have now been applied in the current patch of the game. For example in 2016 and 2017, Reporting on Console was a heavily requested feature. Since that feature is now in the game, any mentions of that post are no longer included in this archive.
  • Any posts that don’t specifically discuss the reasoning of any hero balance changes that have already been applied. (i.e. “Yes, we have plans for Mercy” coming soon.) However, posts that give specific reasoning to hero balance changes will be archived. (i.e. “We have no plans to revert Mercy. We are very satistified with the changes.”)
  • Most Blizzard Posts regarding the game’s development in Beta, unless it is historically relevant. I don’t have direct access to the beta forums which have been shut down for years now, not to mention most posts in the Beta are irrelevant to the state of the game today.

How to navigate this guide
To keep things simple, click on the expand header to open that category to view that list of posts. Posts are organized by subject, post author, date, and source. A :lock: emoji indicates a post that is no longer available to be replied to. A :hourglass: emoji indicates a post that may be longer relevant to the current state of the game. A :sparkling_heart: emoji indicates a post that contains highly relevant information and is a recommended read for all members of the community. A :timer_clock: emoji indicates a post that contains information that is temporarily relevant and will likely be removed from the archives at a later date. A :warning: emoji indicates a post that may lead to “dangerous” content, the post is to denote the warning from Blizzard about such content, but be sure to not navigate to the source content in order to protect your accounts.

Why this guide was made
I like maintaining a record of all relevant responses from Blizzard in order to answer questions to other players on these forums. This is not an initiative for me as a forum MVP, but as a player who really loves this game. I hope that by sharing this organized database, players will be able to look into past developer responses to be able to cite from when creating constructive content here on the forums. Please let me know in the comments below if I missed any relevant content (be sure to provide a link), or if I just screwed something up (I am sure I mislinked something at least once).
 

DIRECTORY (Note each category is in its own page due to character limit per post).

97 Likes

Game Features and Functions

Competitive Play | Skill Rating

COMPETITIVE SEASON NEWS BLOGS

COMPETITIVE MODE ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RULE CHANGES

SKILL RATING AND HIDDEN MMR

COMPETITIVE RULESET

HOW LEAVERS AFFECT COMPETITIVE MATCHES

HERO AND MAP RELEASES IN COMPETITIVE

COMPETITIVE ARCADE MODES

OTHER COMPETITIVE RESPONSES

PLAYER DISTRIBUTION

ONE-TRICKING

COMPETITIVE POINTS, GOLDEN WEAPONS, AND REWARDS

 

Matchmaking | Role Queue

MATCHMAKING

ROLE QUEUE

 

Quick Play | Arcade Game Modes | Training Modes
Seasonal Events | Special Promotions

DEVELOPER RESPONSES

DEVELOPER UPDATE VIDEOS

Social Features | LFG | Endorsements
General Game Features

ANNOUNCEMENTS

POSSIBLE UPCOMING REQUESTED GAME FEATURES (that are not yet in the game)

Guild/Clan System

Map Editor

Match History

Other Features

REQUESTED GAME FEATURES THAT ARE NOT LIKELY TO COME

REQUESTED GAME FEATURES THAT HAVE LATER BEEN IMPLEMENTED INTO THE GAME

OTHER GAME FEATURE RESPONSES

DEVELOPER VIDEO UPDATES/PRESS RELEASES

Public Test Region
Map Design and Balance

AYUTTHAYA (ARENA)

JUNKERTOWN (ESCORT)

HORIZON LUNAR COLONY (ASSAULT)

NUMBANI (HYBRID)

RIALTO (ESCORT)

 

Hero Design Balance

GENERAL HERO BALANCE

ANA

ASHE

BAPTISTE

BRIGITTE

D.VA

DOOMFIST

HANZO

MEI

MERCY

MOIRA

ORISA

REAPER

REINHARDT

ROADHOG

SIGMA

SYMMETRA

TORBJORN

TRACER

WINSTON

WIDOWMAKER

WRECKING BALL

Console Specific Game Features
Reporting | Account Actions | Community Behavior

REPORTING

ACCOUNT ACTIONS

FALSE REPORTING

THIRD-PARTY APPS, AIMBOTS, HACKS

EXPLOITS

SMURF/ALTERNATE ACCOUNTS/BOOSTING/THROWING

ABUSIVE CHAT

GAMEPLAY SABOTAGE

AVOID AS TEAMMATE

AFK/LEAVING
Please note: discussing surrounding leaving Competitive matches can be found in the Competitive Play section above.

GAME BROWSER/LFG/USER CONTENT VIOLATIONS

POSTING VIOLATIONS ON THE FORUMS

SUPPORT FOR ACCOUNT ACTIONS/PENALTIES

OTHER RESOURCES

Legal Information | Copyright Trademark Usage
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Development and History

Game Development Facts

DEVELOPER BIOGRAPHY

DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

Interviews with the Community

INTERVIEWS/PANELS

Technical Support

Connection Troubleshooting - PC
Connection Troubleshooting - Console
Performance/Crashes Troubleshooting - PC
Performance/Crashes Troubleshooting - Console

Overwatch E-Sports

Overwatch League
Overwatch World Cup
Overwatch Contenders
Overwatch Open Division
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Media Content, Lore, and Non-Game Elements

Lore

GENERAL LORE INFORMATION

BAPTISTE LORE

BASTION LORE

BRIGITTE LORE

D.VA LORE

HANZO LORE

JUNKRAT LORE

MCCREE LORE

MEI LORE

MERCY LORE

MOIRA LORE

ORISA LORE

PHARAH LORE

REAPER LORE

REINHARDT LORE

ROADHOG LORE

SOLDIER: 76

SOMBRA LORE

SYMMETRA LORE

TORBJORN LORE

TRACER LORE

WRECKING BALL LORE

ZENYATTA LORE

Comics | Animated Shorts | Origin Stories | Articles

COMICS & SHORT STORIES

ANIMATED SHORTS

ORIGIN STORIES

LORE NEWS ARTICLES

Heroes Among Us
Non-Game Related Posts

 

Fan Content | Fan Contributions
7 Likes

There’s a YouTuber by the name of ‘Dinoflask’ who mirrors all of the developer updates, so I don’t know why you posted them here.

4 Likes

Because that is only the DUV’s and only on YouTube. This is a forum resource to provide EVERYTHING that Blizzard has said about Overwatch in one place.

15 Likes

This is a lot of stuff in one place.

You are an absolute madman, keep it up.

15 Likes

Good work! Hopefully this can get pinned or something

2 Likes

pin this please :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes

After reviewing the first section, I overhauled the Competitive, General Features, and Report/Actions sections to have more defined sub sections. Now you should be able to look up specific subjects in the headers for easy research.

2 Likes

Everyone has a little bit of insanity in them, you just got know how to use it.

12 Likes

I suppose this goes to show that the community cares more about the game than the creators.

1 Like

Fascinating.

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The community cares and so does Blizzard. Right now, it seems so frustrating with a lack of communication from any of the development team lately, but do remember that it is BlizzCon season. The forums was just as quiet this time last year. I know they are working on making the game even better. I have a feeling our patience will be rewarded within a matter of days.

10 Likes

You’re a saint WyomingMyst.

Thanks for all of your effort!

Edit - I noticed nothing showed up on the list for animation cancels. Even if Widowmaker’s scope trick wasn’t an animation cancel, the corresponding post goes over some of their opinions on responsive hero design…

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20745186024?page=3#post-42

Edit 2 - Any chance this can be broken up into Seasons? I know that’s a bit more formatting, but it does help make it more easily digestible since people associate certain things with certain seasons.

2 Likes

Added. I think I was getting tired by the time I was sort through the Geoff Goodman posts. Not to mention since a high majority of the posts are short responses of balance changes that are now out of date from the release of the latest patch, I often did not include them. However this one is worthy because of the design principal he discusses. Thanks for pointing it out.

Competitive Season or Calendar Seasons? Not quite sure what you mean. If changes reflected a certain Competitive Season it was marked. Otherwise any subject point should technically apply today unless it has an hourglass emoji attached to it.

2 Likes

I was thinking something along the lines of this;

Year 1

** Pre Season 1**

  • Something in June 2016

Season 1

  • Something from Season 1

Season 2

  • Something from Season 2
Year 2

Season 5

  • Something from Season 5

Season 6

  • Something from Season 6

Basically an alternate way of structuring things. Although I totally understand if you wouldn’t want to do that just because a megathread by itself is already so much work.

1 Like

Thanks so much for this!

It was always a pain trying to find older Dev comments that I knew existed but couldn’t easily find, especially when they were on the old forums. Gonna make life so much easier.

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Yeah, I rather keep things sorted by category rather than date. Thanks for the suggestion though.

You are most welcome. That is the whole goal of this topic.

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Thanks to everyone who has liked my topic so far, it means a lot to see this has been well received. If you ever feel like you are ever going to use this resource, remember to hit the blue bookmark icon in the starting post. That way you can find the topic in your bookmarks on your forum profile.

3 Likes