Q: It’s not related to S10 balance changes but I’m gonna ask anyway. Were we secretly testing any new upcoming heroes with the Mirrorwatch event?
Blizz_Alec: No secret testing of anything upcoming in the immediate! We do look at how some changes play out though when they become more real and get lots of games, I think the Bastion Ultimate in particular was quite fun even if very loud and on the border technically. Reinhardt's Frenzy passive was also something we played around with internally but it was quite hard to communicate effectively. It's always good to see what players get excited about when there are more wacky ideas such as Mirrorwatch or April Fool's, some of those could become real down the line.
Q: Who is the hardest character to balance and tweak out of the three roles?
Blizz_JNoh: Probably Sombra due to permanent invisibility restricting how deadly we can make her but also because she is a hero that excels with strong team coordination. There are a handful of other heroes with performance stats that differ greatly from the broader community perception of them and that can create difficulty in how we approach balancing them as well.
Q: I know you guys mentioned two upcoming DPS hero reworks. Is there any news about how those reworks are progressing, who they'll be for (I think people have a pretty decent idea, but official confirmation would be nice), and/or when they might be arriving? Also, are there any other heroes under consideration for potential reworks?
Blizz_Alec: The two upcoming updates that were mentioned were for Cassidy and Reaper.
For Cassidy, we started some exploration pre-Season 9 for his update. Due to where he was at that time, this update was originally looking at multiple pieces of his kit but we saw the Season 9 changes largely benefit him so the update has gotten more focused on Magnetic Grenade and other Quality of Life updates (specifically to his Ultimate). In Season 11 we are updating Magnetic Grenade. It will behave closer to old Flashbang (no magnetic homing to the target, used in the short range) and will slow/hinder the target. We think that plays a lot better with his kit and removes some of the larger frustrations around Magnetic Grenade. More specifics on all that soon.
For Reaper, we went fairly wide as well in the beginning and then started to focus closely on updating Shadow Step. At the moment, we have something we quite like but it's actually a large technical challenge and we are in the process of planning out the work/seeing what's possible. In the meantime, we may buff Reaper in some non-Tank Buster ways as he lost a lot in the most recent update.
Q: What is the average rank of your play testers and what level of input do they have in deciding what changes are made in each balance patch?
Blizz_Hudson: A huge part of our team culture revolves around playtesting. From Designers, to QA and community management, everyone has the opportunity to play what we're working on and give open honest feedback. One of the advantages of this model is we get perspective from a wide range of player ranks from GM 1 to Bronze 5. It's been a while since we've taken an official poll on average rank, but having a wide sample helps prevent tunnel visioning on feedback from specific ranks.
Q: 2 part question here: Why the inconsistency with dev comments/explanations for balance changes? There have been many changes that have been questionable (biggest offender was buffing Sojourn in January when she was widely considered the best DPS) that were shipped with 0 explanation. Justifying these changes would help a lot with player perception so we could understand these discrepancies. I have to ask - what is going on with Symmetra? She was weak, then buffed, then immediately reverted, now silence. Is she getting reworked? What data shows she needed a nerf? She is super weak and hard to use on ladder (uncoordinated environment by nature) and was only played in OWCS for Mauga - shouldn't nerfing Mauga have been enough?
Blizz_Alec: We should do a better job about this, especially when it comes to getting the community's visibility on what we are seeing vs. what the playerbase may seem to think is the best hero at any given one time. These can differ regularly as certain heroes get power reputations (weaker or stronger than their reality at a given rank) that are hard to shake off. Thanks for the feedback there, will make sure we have something here even if it's a simple change.
Symmetra kept some of the buffs in that patch but yes we hear the feedback of where her current power level is. We may have been a bit overreactive to the Mauga compositions popping up during that timeframe (he was certainly overtuned), but we wanted to be sure of it. For right now, we are in discussions about Symmetra and especially her frontline presence. Believe that's a piece of the kit we'd like to promote further, whether through her survivability or beam damage.
Q: Why was smurf detection essentially removed from MMR adjustment, especially for new accounts? GM-level players taking 60+ games to reach their proper rank ruins so many more games. It feels like climbing in general is artificially slowed down so people will play more even if they should have reached a higher rank many games ago.
Blizz_Alec: I tapped in our own Gavin Winter for this first part, he's what he had to say: "There haven't been any changes to these systems, but there are edge cases like the example of Guxue that was recently posted in this subreddit where our systems don't perform in the way we'd like. Most players will still be placed appropriately as they transition from Quick Play to Competitive Play, but unfortunately cases like this have always been possible. Explaining exactly how this happens would make it easier to reproduce, so you'll have to excuse me from not going into intricate detail here."
For the second part of your question, we believe we made it slightly too difficult to climb at the highest ranks and are looking at making some adjustments soon.
Q: Will you ever make pick rates and win rates public, even a couple of weeks after the fact? I feel like it would do a lot to help people understand why changes are made. Is there a win rate range you want to keep all heroes to stay within?
Blizz_JNoh: There aren't any plans currently to shift resources toward supporting something like that. Sites like Overbuff don't have the complete picture, but the data there for win rates and such is generally fairly close.
There is some argument against being too transparent with those stats in that it can create a bit of a feedback loop where you might see player behavior driven by what appears to be the meta in the stats, but that kind of happens already with just the general discussion and sentiment around heroes without stats as well.
Our target range for hero viability by win rate is between 45-55% unmirrored win rate at Masters rank and above. Those individual win rates often can fluctuate 2-3% by day, mostly because heroes tend to have a wider range of win rates per map and we're looking at the global average of those, but also individual player performance isn't consistent.
Lower pick rate heroes fluctuate more and there is less confidence in their win rate being indicative of actual strength. Extremely high pick rate heroes have a similar problem when looking at unmirrored stats.
In the end, stats require interpretation to understand their context and that is why they are not the only basis for balance changes but are a useful tool to measure the impact of changes patch-over-patch.
Q: What is Hanzo's new job? Is he supposed to take over Pharah's place as the new go-to permanently pocketed hero? To explain more in depth: Hanzo used to be a sniper, but the recent changes caused most heroes to require 1 extra shot to eliminate a target. Considering Hanzo is the slowest shooting primary fire focused DPS, he was impacted the most. Making him the only primary fire focused DPS who relies on cooldowns to finish off targets due to the very long time to kill: Assuming full charging the arrows (to be able to hit targets past melee range): 3 bodyshots = ~2.5 seconds TTK (~3.25 seconds if bow not preloaded) Or best case scenario: 1 headshot + 1 bodyshot = ~1.25 seconds TTK (~2 seconds if bow was not preloaded) Compared to for example Cassidy: 4 bodyshots = 1.5 seconds TTK Or best case scenario: 2 headshots = ~0.5 seconds TTK Hanzo's only advantage here is that he deals full damage past 35 meters, but trying to hit someone 2-3 times in a row even at 35 meters is next to impossible (considering physical cover + the long time to kill + projectile travel time) At the same time Mercy pocketed Hanzo can still one shot, with the added benefit of now having a 2x bigger arrow hitbox (and buffed storm arrows).
Blizz_JNoh: Hanzo is still an effective mid-range burst damage hero even without the one-shot kills. Post season 9 with the projectile size changes actually saw an increase in Hanzo's performance on the stat side. I do hear you on the loss of how good the one shot kills felt, but an overarching goal of season 9 was to reduce a lot of those burst damage frustrations for players on the receiving end of it. Armor changes in season 10 have also been a benefit to his damage. Still very early but we've been experimenting with adjusting health pools for some of the more evasive or high damage heroes which would also put them back into the range of lethal Hanzo headshots and some other hero combos at 225 HP, but while it would bring some interesting texture to hero interactions overall there are also a bunch of other problems to solve if we want to go through with it.
Q: A month later, and considering he's displayed proudly on the Twitter post for the AMA, I got my question: How have you guys felt about the past reworks on Roadhog and the new one, Wrecking Ball? Like what the goals were exactly, your personal thoughts, the community response, and what you want to fine-tune with them post rework. Those things. I think most people would be interested on how you guys have felt now that it's been a bit.
Blizz_Alec: For the most part, we are relatively happy with the new bases both have been given but there is still some fine-tuning to be done.
I'll start with Wrecking Ball. Our goals were to give him more flexibility with his movement/engage options, heighten the benefits he gives to his team, and give him some quality of life updates. I think our changes all attempt to address those goals but one I think we can hit harder in the future is heightening the benefits he gives to his team. We were a little conservative with the Adaptive Shields change (overhealth is hyper scary in coordinated environments), so perhaps there's room for that to be more pronounced through tuning and actual feedback received in game (working on some updates there). Overall though, Wrecking Ball is doing much better after his recent updates and we believe we have a great base to work with going forward.
For Roadhog, aside from the conversations about his current survivability (we plan to hit that soon) there are some things for us to look at concerning the frequency of his combo. For example, his Pig Pen begins to go on cooldown when you throw it. So you can pre-place one, it gets destroyed, and then Roadhog already has it ready again (even though the enemy may think there's a window where Hook is less deadly). That's one discussion we've recently had. Still some work here for us to do in terms of the value Pig Pen brings outside of the combo as well and how we can make those windows of combo potential less frequent.
Q: Are there any nerfs being discussed for Hog, specifically his survivability? Times where multiple people are shooting a Hog and he just walks away while using his breather seemingly gaining more health than losing health makes the damage you’re doing to him feel pointless and is very unfun to play against, especially now that headshots do less damage to him.
Blizz_Alec: Yes, we plan on nerfing his survivability very soon. We are touching Take a Breather and Whole Hog in an upcoming patch. Hoping that can go live tomorrow.
Q: Hello, with the major tank changes (e.g. armor changes, knockback changes, headshot change, and individual balance changes) that released last week, I am very curious: have there been any noticeable, immediate shifts in the win rates and pick rates amongst tanks? Has there been any collateral shifts within the DPS and support role because of the recent tank changes? I know that, for instance, after the recent armor changes, some heroes have become weaker against armored tanks (i.e. Tracer and Reaper) while others have become significantly stronger (i.e. Cass and Hanzo). I'm interested in knowing how the team's behind-the-scenes statistics have measured lately as a result of the recent tank changes—that is, if it is possible for you guys to share it. If not, understandable.
Blizz_Alec: Some of this is related to meta happenings or balance changes but also related to armor changes/headshot reduction for Tanks. From what we can see the biggest winners (in terms of their performance delta) of the patch are: Ana, Junkrat, Pharah, Roadhog, Sigma, Wrecking Ball, and Zarya.
Many heroes stayed relatively similar while a handful saw a decrease in performance (Bastion, D.Va, Mauga, Orisa, and Reaper).
Q: Ok, I'll try to ask some general questions. Free to choose which one to answer: _" In February I noticed that you had received great feedback on the maps after the first hacked mode. But I was wondering when those ideas would be implemented (especially for flashpoints). Personally, I liked Clash Mode. But I also wanted to know what kind of results you received that require modification in your opinion, or if you have noticed any optimal results to maintain, or imitate for other game modes.
Blizz_Alec: These fall outside of hero design but can talk briefly about the first two questions.
Think you are referencing the speed boosts that would potentially come to Flashpoint. Took us some time to get these in a good place but they have been promising in playtests and are on track for a later season. It's important to us that when we add elements like that to a mode that it not only brings quality gameplay but is also communicated well through Sound and VFX. Feel good here now.
We got a lot of great feedback but there are some things the team wished we did better with the Clash Preview. Firstly, it should have showed up more in Quick Play so y'all got more reps on it and can get a better feel for the flow of the game mode. Secondly, we don't think it was best suited for Open Queue in Arcade. If we do something like this again, we'll clean that up. With the feedback we received, we've been investigating how to make the final point more appealing to capture for the attacking team. Many games could result in the attacking team not actually wanting to push onto the last point because it wasn't worth the reward (harder to capture, give up a lot of positioning if you lose). Plenty of iteration happening here now to address that particular issue.
Q: Hi there, I think one of the most obvious questions people here will have is what are the plans to balance out Roadhog. With the midseason tank adjustments I’m sure the general sentiment is that Hog is an outlier for survivability and damage amongst the tanks, especially since Orisa isn’t there to keep him in check now. The headshot damage reduction and his soft rework from before means his survivability is through the roof, and his damage is as high as ever. What are the plans to reign him back in? I will also personally say I don’t think the solution is to buff Orisa, rather nerf Hog to keep him in line. Aside from Hog I think the tank balance is pretty great right now otherwise. Also is there going to be something done about the overbearing passiveness of heroes like LW, that will simultaneously not interact with the enemy team at all whilst also not providing any offensive utility for his own team? I think for all other 9 players in the lobby it’s a pretty miserable experience to have a LW. Thanks for your time.
Blizz_Alec: Answered the Roadhog question in a different place, but yes changes coming soon.
For Lifeweaver, one of the discussions we are having right now (actually this week) and have been having for a while is around the friction that comes with switching between his healing and damage. Giving him more flexibility here would be a great boon to his capability within team fights. Additionally, we've experimented a lot with his Petal Platform. Personally would love for that to be a more attractive area to stand on as a teammate (whether that be through a buff the platform gives you or something else) but there's a lot of learned behavior to work through as allies hop off the platform quite often.
Q: Hey! I have 2 Mercy questions:
1. Is the team looking at Mercy at all for any changes/small buffs? 2. What is Mercy's pick and win rate now compared to Season 3?
Back in Mid Season 9, the DPS passive was reduced and a dev blog stated Mercy wouldn't see changes as she should 'be more reliable moving forward' with the reduction. That nerf was reverted and Mercy stayed the same.
The community has been ranking Mercy as a D Tier support for a few Seasons now and she's in this weird spot where people don't like playing against her, with her, or as her anymore. I and many others still enjoy her most out of all the other heroes but she doesn't play nearly as fun as she used to after the changes that've been made to her (mainly nerfs) and the game over the last year. Thanks!
Blizz_Alec: 1. I think we are more happy in the 20% DPS Passive world than the 15% (it cuts through a lot better, helps mitigate the healing more effectively) so Mercy is more worth a look when that world is permanent. There are some questions of how far we can push her movement and know that is one of the most requested changes.
2. Mercy is still a top-picked 3/4 Support and even higher on console until you hit GM/Top 500. Her performance follows a similar trend, where she's in the top grouping for most ranks and remains above average at the highest ranks. Doesn't mean that she wont receive changes but that is where she is at currently.
Q:I'm not really sure how I am supposed to ask this, but?,
Is the current Balance Team confident about being able to dix the biggest problems the Tank role has been suffering since the OW2 release?
I'm specifically talking about the Counterswap Meta and unhealthy Tank designs being "allowed" to exist, like Tank busters and unkillable tanks (Roadhog, Mauga, and Orisa).
Are we confident that making Tanks able to do almost everything is the right thing to do?
Are we confident that we can make Tank fun again for the majority of the player base without straight buffs?
The headshot reduction and knockback reduction changes are especially interesting to me because I really don't think that simple number changes will fix how Tanks feel to play.
I don't want to counterswap.
I don't want to face unkillable and easy-to-play Tanks.I don't want Tank Busters.
I really LOVE this game but it currently feels like as if we were going into the wrong direction while ignoring the BIGGEST Problems :c
Blizz_jNoh: At its core, Overwatch is a game designed around being able to swap heroes to gain a tactical advantage or help solve a challenge you might be encountering. This contributes to keeping the moment-to-moment gameplay experience dynamic, drives hero diversity and offers a wider range of both strategic gameplay and skill expression in learning when/where/how to play multiple heroes.
There is a question of how much of an advantage is too much compared to the cost of switching. Ideally we want counters to be clear and understandable, but soft enough that it's still possible to outplay a disadvantaged matchup. It is a team game though and 1v1 matchups are not the highest priority when assessing the heroes.
Tanks do feel this the most with only one of them per team in 5v5 role queue, but all roles do experience the pressure to counter and be countered to an extent.
We're striving to find a balance between swapping heroes every death, (which certainly feels too often), and rarely swapping heroes or getting trapped in mirror matches every game, which quickly leads to fatigue. We've seen a lot of improvements here compared to earlier seasons, but it could always be better.
"Unhealthy" and unpopular designs are not necessarily the same thing. When designing heroes, we aim to provide a wide range of playstyles, mechanics, and aesthetics for players to enjoy. It's okay if they don't all resonate with everyone broadly. We'll do our best to make the game as fun as it can be for a wide audience.
