Yesterday Jeff Kaplan dropped a huge developer update for Overwatch talking about the introduction of Competitve Hero Pools, a Experimental Mode, replay sharing and UI changes. After the video released Jeff took to the Blizzard forums for about an hour, here’s all his replies to people.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Persevere:
Blizzard kept saying that this game is about being able to play several heros and flexing between them, but this is basically the first time when Blizzard supports this statement with an in-game mechanics.
Which, I think, is good for the game overall.And I’m sure it was a very hard change for Blizzard, since the whole idea goes against basic game marketing – most people buy the game to play a character they love, not to be an flex-champion.
So whatever I like this change or not, I applaud Blizzard for making it.
Thanks for the feedback!
Oddly, we’re not viewing this change as dramatic, scary or impactful as the decision to pursue Hero Limits or our decision to implement Role Queue. Hero Pools will be introduced for Season 21 of Competitive Play only. Unlike Role Queue or Hero Limits, Quick Play and the Arcade will be completely the same as they are today with Hero Pools. This alone already means the number of affected matches is FAR less than those two prior systems.
Also, we’re super open to change with Hero Pools. If we (the dev team and the community) don’t feel like it’s a positive change during Season 21, then we won’t bring it back in Season 22. We get a lot of feedback asking for Competitive seasons to feel “different†from one another. Season 20 and Season 21 will certainly feel different!
Also, something we talk about a lot in game design is the that there is often no one, correct answer. Design is all about tradeoffs. If the thing that the community decides is “the most egregious†is a “static meta†and they “want the dev team to do something about itâ€Â… we’re going to take steps towards change. We can’t force the meta to move and not make the game work differently. Last year was great proof that player creativity and balance changes alone weren’t enough to move people off of 3/3 fast enough for the community to feel satisfied. The meta would have moved on it’s own… just slowly.
We’ve decided to help you move it along. If there are things we don’t like about Hero Pools, we can change it. Maybe they don’t come back for Season 22? Maybe they rotate faster? Maybe more or less heroes should be in the pool? We’ll all find out in Season 21.
But really this should be viewed as a fun an exciting change to Season 21 (we wanted Seasons to feel different, right?). And time will tell what happens after…
Either way, hearing your thoughts and feedback is really helpful to us.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
MilkyPeach:
Any information yet on how many heroes will be available in a week of hero pool?
For the first 5 weeks, we will be trying a range to see what feel right. We’ve architected this system so that we can update the hero pools without the need to patch. So we’ll be monitoring feedback very closely, experimenting a bit with the pool and adapting our strategy as time goes on.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Nightstream:
Idea, bring it to the experiment card before season 21 for players to test it
The card won’t be ready until end of Feb.
For now, you can test it by not playing Torb for the week.
Next week, don’t play Symmetra.
=]
only playing with ya…
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
what:
Would you consider rotating hero pools once every few days instead? one week is far too long, in my opinion, and once every match may come across as too hectic.
Yes. We’ve definitely considered it. Let’s try a week and see how it feels and if we need to make adjustments we will. But yeah… we’ve talked about rotating every day. We’ve also talked about rotating every match. We don’t like going longer than a week because we want more heroes played… but open to feedback.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
NOOOOOoooooo:
Would it be possible if we’d got scoreboard in the future too?
The discussion is open for OW2.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Minerrow:
Is the profile update gonna bring new level borders?
no [i have to type twenty characters even though i work here]
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
YoeyTheForge:
Please do this, more stats would be awesome to have.
regardless of if we do a different scoreboard for OW2, we definitely want to do more with stats and provide more statistics to players
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Socrates:
What about maybe a seasonal rotation?
we talked about a season rotation but taking a hero out of play for 2 months makes us a bit nervous. never say never but it’s not our first instinct…
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
kminito:
You may create a card so users can create the hero poll, that could be great at least to try!
you can limit heroes in Custom Game. give it try!
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Minerrow:
Thanks for the communication, hope those features are gonna be good and can’t wait to see the new workshop additions.
workshop creators will really love some of the changes Zach and Dan made to the feature. they listened to their feedback very closely and all of it is in response to what creators wanted. really proud of them for their work!
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Ryan:
I have to ask though, what is the point of having super fast and drastic balance changes if we are just going to be enforcing weekly metas with hero pools anyways? Like what is the point of nerfing or buffing a hero if they can only be played whether they are in that week’s pool or not?
Historically, even when we have done consistent and dramatic balance changes, it takes the meta a long time to shift. We’d love it if balance or player creativity alone would shift the meta fast enough to meet player’s demands.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Misguided:
I’d love to be able to see stats associated with each replay on my profile page. Hopefully that’s under consideration.
we want this too. more likely for OW2 at this point…
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Deprece:
If the Dev team decides to change up the Hero Pool functionality quickly, how would that effect the OWL Hero pool system?
we work closely with OWL on all decisions. we’d just chat with them.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Korda:
is there a ban protection for popular heroes?
will lets say mercy, banned one week, than played alot next week, will she be protected not to be banned 3rd week again?
whats the plan?
we’re curating the list ourselves. we have some philosophies and guidelines we’ll be following (and evolving as we hear your feedback). we will do our best to be judicious and make sure no hero is getting the “horizon†treatment, as with our map pools…
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Annimositty:
I’m sorry but I can’t see how any of this is “fun†or “exitingâ€Â. I love tanking. And outside my horrible D.Va I love using all the tanks.
we would never limit the pool to just one tank. you’ll never be forced to play a single tank, such as D.va as described above… if you love playing all the other tanks, you’ll be fine.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Rhaemir:
How will you be choosing which heroes don’t make it into the pool? Will it be heroes that are “meta†or will it be a bit more random than that? Or a combination of the two?
it’s curated by us. so it will be a combination of targeting metas that players are being vocally negative about (recent examples: double barrier, goats) and slightly encouraging other playstyles (i.e. “more mobile†comps might be fun for a week…)
but i am sure we’ll refine our approach over time.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Hybrid:
Will the 1-3-2 system you talked about earlier in another post be in the experimental mode? You said you wanted us to try it out for ourselves.
ooooh sounds like fun… we should let you all try, huh?
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Hybrid:
Also, can you provide a hint on the next hero?
you know that i can’t ><
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
NiHKI:
Is the hero pool going to be different for each rank?
not in this version. interesting idea though.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Otlap:
An Experimental mode is very interesting. Are the new possible systems will be tested here? How is it safe for OW client? What if the new possible system will make a major bug in the client and what will happen to the PTR?
we’ll still use the PTR for major patches and major changes. for example, if we were testing a new hero or map, that would be on the PTR and not in the Experimental Card.
the experimental card uses a different data set and was engineered by people far smarter than i am. it’s going to work and be magic and nothing could possibly go wrong… right? =]
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Hira:
Jeff hello! Sorry for questioning here, but can you please say something about smurfs on consoles? You know they can create unlimited accounts with one copy of the game. May be some changes specific for consoles?
this is a very hard problem to solve but we have some ideas. any solution is more long term, though. possibly OW2 or later. sorry i know that’s not the answer you wanted but it’s actually very complicated with the way consoles work and the rules regarding account creation.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Cerburus437:
Who is the best overwatch waifu
- hammond
- mei
- tracer
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Indigo:
I really, really like the Experimental Card plan. It seems like it’ll help with testing out small changes or shifting concepts for heroes with more people being able to try them out. Smaller and more tested changes is a good way to go!
totally. we’re so excited for this. we’ve wanted this for so long. it was a ton of work but it’s going to be really cool. plus i am super excited to get console players involved with testing changes (right now they cannot play the PTR)
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
fumingǃ:
i think a hero pool would be more beneficial for higher ranks (masters and up) and may have a negative impact on competitive gameplay for the average ranks. although players should be more diverse, having random banned heroes may result in people playing heroes they arent very good at which would hurt the entire team.
we’ve considered having the system only apply to players above a certain rank (diamond? masters?). it’s definitely on our minds.fumingǃ:
ps have yall considered adding a finnish hero? im from finland
i’m not sure we can make a hero great than teemu selanne?
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Otlap:
Will OWL affect the hero bans pool of the live game? Or the Live game will affect OWL bans pool? Or these things are separate and does not interfere with each other?
these are separate things that will not affect each other.
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
Cerburus437:
Out of all the things you’ve talked about so far today to us, what are you the most excited for?
your feedback…
JeffreyKaplan commented on Hero pools is a brave and holistic change
going to go get some tea now. thanks for all of the great thoughts and thoughtful questions. we’ll make changes as needed. thanks again! <3
That’s it. Hope you enjoyed reading some of Jeff’s thoughts, there were some real good ones in there and lots to think about. What are your thoughts on the future of Overwatch?
~bigfisch
bigfisch@gamewatchtoday.com