Hello everyone! Long time catching up on this thread. First, I got all of the recent posts from Jeff Kaplan, Josh Noh, and Bill Warnecke throughout the month of January caught up (see below for the summary). Secondly, I think I have figured out how to recover all of the old forum posts from the Internet Archive even though the pages do not load correctly. I hope to have something completed by the end of this month if all goes well. Again I hope this archive is a great help to everyone!
Overwatch 2 Developer Responses
- Jeff Kaplan explains that Overwatch 2 will bring new gameplay for both PVE and PVP. - Jeff Kaplan - 2/3/2020 - Official Forums
- Jeff Kaplan hints that match-specific stats is likely to come with Overwatch 2. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Jeff Kaplan states they want to provide more helpful statistics to players in Overwatch 2. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Jeff Kaplan hints that they are discussing on adding a proper scoreboard for Overwatch 2. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Jeff Kaplan confirms that every story mission with have an intro and an outro. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/14/2020 - Official Forums
- Jeff Kaplan explains that the Rio De Janeiro Mission Intro and Outro from the Overwatch 2 play demo at BlizzCon 2019 are planned to be longer. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/14/2020 - Official Forums
Competitive Play
HERO POOLS
- Hero pools may change to where they only affect upper ranks of Competitive Play. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Hero pools will not vary at each skill tier but might in the future. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Jeff notes the approach to the heroes decided will be refined over time. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Hero pools will never be limited down to 1 selectable hero per role - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Hero pools will be decided by the development team and there will be some guideline to deciding what heroes are rotated out of the metagame each week. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Jeff Kaplan explains they are still introducing hero pools even if they are going to be more aggressively tackling hero balance and the perceived metagame for Overwatch as an effort to introduce player creativity. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- A season-long (2-month) hero rotation is unlikely for hero pools. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Jeff Kaplan explains the reasoning for introducing Hero Pools and confirms it may not return for season 22 if it does not work out well for season 21 of Competitive Play. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Hero pools starting out may have a variable range of heroes restricted from Competitive Play in the first five weeks. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Hero pools may rotate faster than a week if needed. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
HOW LEAVERS AFFECT COMPETITIVE MATCHES
Matchmaking | Role Queue
ROLE QUEUE
- Jeff Kaplan teases that the 1-3-2 role lock might be tested on the Experimentation playcard sometime when it comes out - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
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Jeff Kaplan shares an extended experiment of the development team running playtests using a 1 tank, 3 damage, 2 support role lock and shares the benefits and disadvantages that system had. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/14/2020 - Official Forums
General Game Features
REQUESTED GAME FEATURES THAT ARE NOT LIKELY TO COME
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Jeff Kaplan gives a very detailed post about a Hero Pick and Ban System and why Overwatch is not likely to use one any time soon. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/22/2020 - Official Forums
- Jeff Kaplan explains that it would be extremely difficult to change Overwatch’s game structure to support more than 12 players. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/14/2020 - Official Forums
OTHER GAME FEATURE RESPONSES
DEVELOPER VIDEO UPDATES
Public Test Region
Hero Design Balance
General Hero Balance
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Josh Noh explains that the game at the time was not demonstrating an considerable amount of Power Creep versus that of the GOATs team composition from 2019. - Josh Noh - 1/8/2020 - Official Forums
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Josh Noh explains the importance of looking at Stats versus that of Player Feedback when determining hero balance changes for the game. - Josh Noh - 1/8/2020 - Official Forums
Reporting | Account Actions | Community Behavior
SMURF/ALTERNATE ACCOUNTS/BOOSTING/THROWING
Development Challenges
Development History
Overwatch Esports
- Hero Pools in the live game will not be the same for during the 2020 season of the League. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums
- Jeff Kaplan that any change that affects the Overwatch League is discussed with them. - Jeff Kaplan - 1/30/2020 - Official Forums