A bunch of background information has been revealed to the Overwatch 2 community following a Reddit AMA where members of the Hero Balance team for the game took questions from players. We got looks into the present and future of Overwatch 2 hero updates and even learned about some interesting past abilities that characters almost had in the live version.
When asked about internal testing they did on new characters, lead balance designer Josh Noh noted that there have been many and provided a few. At one point, D.Va could tether her mech to opponents and drag them away. If this remained in her kit, she would have been able to connect it to any hero and throw her Self-Destruct ultimate anywhere and that character would be doomed to endure the hit. Additional abilities that were once considered were Sombra’s Hack reducing max health on her target for a full minute and Wrecking Ball knocking down enemies he would roll over. All of these would have been ridiculously strong moves that could take over the game, so we can understand why Blizzard would abandon them.
Lead hero designer Alec Dawson was also present for the Q&A and had some interesting tidbits to share about changes that current heroes could see. No timeline or certainty that these would come out was given, but these are some of the ideas Dawson said the team is discussing:
- Junkrat grenades having a smaller hitbox when they bounce off walls
- Cassidy’s Magnetic Grenade won’t stun but would set him up for easier shots
- Slightly reducing Moira’s damage but making sure she has more utility as a Support
Other changes hinted at were the new Support coming in Season 4 bringing exciting ways to interact with your team and Brigitte’s long-rumored ultimate change being something that could take the team anywhere between one and six months to implement into the game.
Outside of these changes, there are a lot of comments from the Overwatch 2 team here about design philosophy moving forward. There are talks of punishing early leavers more harshly, the role that passive abilities play in a hero’s identity, an assurance that they are looking into the one-sided nature of games these days, and how the SR Decay system has skewed players’ perception of their rank.
