Simple Explanation of Why Pros Are Testing Out OW2 Tomorrow

[Prett-1169]

@Esoterica-1106

I’m summarizing that as “we pay attention to the feedback that agrees with what we think and disregard the rest”.

Incidentally, that’s a pretty biased way of looking at it

[RaysofGlory-1937]

@SILK-12678

Because who else would do it lol?

I don’t know, maybe the playerbase that made Overwatch what it is today?

They obviously have the money to do something like this if they managed to drop 30 million on a new stadium. Money is not an issue.

[RipperX-21214]

they should do what they use to do put a post out that they are hiring game tester or they email to players saying oh we are looking for players to test our game and then go pick some of the random players and make them sign privacy stuff and then make them test it…that way it is normal people be testing it gamers, not pros who play it on the level a normal player doesn’t

[FranckyFox24-1586]

I’d legit want a dedicated rocket jumping hero ngl.

Closest we have to a character properly being able to do this is bastion ulting but id want like a proper hero.

[egg-14222]

@AndyB-11735

Every designer I’ve worked with has understood that any player feedback (whether Bronze, Grand Master, or professional) is laced with personal biases and assumptions.

“And that’s a fact” -Pewdiepie

[Marcane-11355]

@AndyB-11735

try to remove the personal biases from player feedback

I try my hardest to not have my own personal bias take place when I try to help out from time to time with different ideas, whether it’s a nerf, buff or full-fledge rework. I create the ideas from first figuring out the problem, then solving said problem in a way that makes it so that everybody tends to be happy.

@AndyB-11735

Hey folks,

Since we’re talking about feedback, and why we would have OWL pros playing the game, this is an area where I can speak as a CM first, rather than as a proxy for Team 4.

Every designer I’ve worked with has understood that any player feedback (whether Bronze, Grand Master, or professional) is laced with personal biases and assumptions. Game designers are like artists in many ways: both disciplines take in feedback from many diverse sources, and apply that feedback with a central vision guiding their decision making.

A large part of what community managers do is to try to remove the personal biases from player feedback, and then communicate what’s the root cause of player friction to designers. The designers have an understanding of how that feedback fits into the bigger picture, and have analytical tools that they can use to evaluate what’s reported via community sentiment. Most importantly, according to Lead Hero Designer, Geoff Goodman,

Geoff: It’s part of our job to respect the context of the feedback.

Your concerns about player biases are completely understandable. We agree, and it’s something we always account for, even when we’re providing feedback on our internal playtests.

Overall, this is a good thing for them to be doing, cause oh goodness me, how much bias can exist in the forums sometimes…

@Kaedi-11739

Andy, on the discussion of feedback. Can you say if it is still the philosophy of the dev team that they take into account these three factors when determine balance changes overall:

• Player feedback across all ranks
• Statistical performance of heroes at pro level and grandmaster play
• Developer team insights

I know this was something former Game Director Jeff Kaplan discussed at length on the old forums. (I really need to finish the old forum archives…)

If they haven’t done this be4, this would be nice to take into consideration.

@AndyB-11735

Can confirm.

Geoff: Add stats to that list as well (sic; metrics, analytics, etc…)

Well, cool.

@AndyB-11735

In my personal experience, the answer is “it depends”.

I’ll fall back on what I said about having an understanding of the bigger picture. Because live operations are very dynamic in nature, feedback can be weighted differently in different scenarios.

I think that’s a good response, personally. Because if it’s something like everybody saying the same thing, that’s something that should be heard and taken into consideration. But, obviously let’s not do something bazzare like “Remove Anti-Nade entirely,” which I do see sometimes.

@AndyB-11735

Recall is basically CTRL Z tho

Now this is just a bit funny. lol

Now that I’ve read all the dev comments, hoping he’s still here, perhaps u can confirm if Sym’s Support or DPS, at least? I’m curious to hear of something that could’ve been done 4 Sym in OW2, but I haven’t heard of anything Sym news yet. Even with the future OW2 update, which is Bastion at least, the other 2 rumors I hear that could be true or not is Sombra, which I think is 80-90% true, then Brigitte, which I’m not gonna put a percentage there as to how true is it, cuz I legit am clueless here.

Thanks 4 ur time,
The D.va, Brigitte, Tracer, Orisa, Mercy and Genji main at ur service,
Marcane

[Poytheon-1466]

@Zekki-1657

What I don’t understand is why they announced it to the public. You had to have realized by now that players who have been patiently awaiting the game’s release for years would be envious.

Perhaps they expected people not to be so immature about it. Heck, I’m surprised at all the whining I’m seeing. It’s like this is some players first experience waiting for a game to come out and don’t understand that it takes time. I’ve been playing OW since late beta and have been playing games for 20 years, there’s nothing weird about pros playing a super early build to show off for the public, what is weird is the entitlement I’m seeing from people about how they should be able to play it too. Just wait, sheesh.

[Cake-12334]

What about doing hero kit changes to specifically make OWL matches more dps-centric and exciting to watch?

Basically eroding away the strategic hero shooter elements in favor of “Call of Duty’ing” the brand to appeal to audiences and retain viewers more

The easiest examples would be weakening defense matrix and giving D.va Micro Missiles,

or removing Torb armor packs and giving him overload, things like that

[Sprklmufin-1212]

I think at this point my only concern is that OW2 will have nothing but OWL pro feedback for awhile since they’re the only ones actually playing the game. Can’t really take feedback from all ranks as usual in this case.

I know the devs can’t magically make the game ready and playable for everyone but that’s just my concern when it comes to OWL really dictating the direction of the game early on you know?

Thank you for interacting so much with the forums by the way.

[AtomicBetty-3767]

@Lynx-13811

Honestly, beyond the astounding amounts of entitlement, I don’t get how many people here don’t see this is in the community’s best interests.

Pros teams testing first will get the worst balance issues out the way. A situation like launch Brig will be figured out in no time, fixing that early will prevent the wider community from getting attached to broken heroes

People need to understand this ^

[YOURFRIEND-1420]

Just hit me up. I got no biases. I want every hero to be powerful and feel fun. You’ve got my card.

[TobiasAlec-11572]

with all respect…your pfp is mei, so you…“mei” have a tiny bias towards her

[ChronoSoul-1387]

@SILK-12678

Because who else would do it lol? For the average player to get to test OW2, Blizz would need to apply significant resources to launch a beta.

This has nothing to do with the cost of launching a beta or not letting “some random players” try out the pre-launch version of OW2.

This is all just marketing to help increase attention on OWL.
Any other company with a brand new game would only have multiple, small livestream events just dedicated to some of the info of the game & nothing else.
But Blizzard needs some way to get more viewers for OWL, & dangling shiny keys is what they’re doing.

[YOURFRIEND-1420]

She’s cute. Reckon that’s my bias. Toward glasses girls.

[IbukiLacroix-1401]

Love The Devil is a Part-Timer reference. OvO

[Aster-2434]

@AndyB-11735

Every designer I’ve worked with has understood that any player feedback (whether Bronze, Grand Master, or professional) is laced with personal biases and assumptions.

Finnaly, statement about something not everyone want to accept.
We all biased, from bronze to pros player, no one is free of it. Just accept it.

[SILK-12678]

@ChronoSoul-1387

This is all just marketing to help increase attention on OWL.

Yes you’re absolutely right, but so what? This move gets more eyes on the Overwatch League, and the Grand Finals is likely to draw a large crowd do a demo of the game. It’s a win win. I don’t understand why the OW community tends to view smart business moves as deceitful or tricky. Of course they want views lmao literally EVERY business wants exposure

[kongajinken-1805]

Balancing performance exclusively at high level has extreme drawbacks for those in the middle and is part of the problem with why OWL balance is so detrimental to the average player.

You gotta realize that people in the middle get different value out of a hero than people at the higher ends. This means if you buff someone like reinhardt if he is doing bad at the higher end, than he becomes basically mandatory at middle ranks as he gets so much value out of him that mid ranks become awful as all of a sudden the only part of the game that matters is if your tank picks reinhardt or not.

550 Reinhardt was quite possibly the worst balance this game has ever seen. Never have I felt more useless and that my contribution didn’t matter than when reinhardt was that strong at mid ranks. It felt like the only thing that mattered was if your team had a reinhardt or not.

If a hero is doing good at mid ranks, and bad at high ranks, you gotta realize that you if you are going to change them, you need to make the change in a way that preserves balance at ranks, case in point if reinhardt gets a flat HP buff, that effects mid ranks just as much as high ranks, you need to make a change to where only high rank players benefit from the change, as otherwise you are just going to ruin balance for everyone that isn’t at top rank.

[ChronoSoul-1387]

@SILK-12678

It’s a showcase of the game, and who would you choose to publicly showcase your new game: a group of professionals under contract that use your product for a living, or some random players that your company has zero background information on?

You compared how pros would be better than random players to showcase the game as your reason why they are showcasing OW2 with OWL, when their gameplay capability in giving a better performance for the OW2 showcase is not the reason.

I was simply stating the obvious that it’s just to help increase the OWL numbers.
I don’t care what method Blizzard uses to give new info to the masses.
Whether, it’s in pre-recorded video form, dedicated OW2 livestream, or OWL event. I just want the news.

[Tatianna-11687]

oh also andy, is the workshop still gonna be a feature in OW2? or is it only in OW1