We have now officially had our first Overwatch Developer Update of the year for 2020. Game Director for Overwatch Jeff Kaplan talks extensively about the upcoming additions to the game which will include the Experimental Card, Hero Pools, and more. In the video, Kaplan discusses the two main areas of feedback from the community he and the Overwatch team have gotten.
These include the team balancing the game more frequently and what the developers' philosophy is around the balance changes and defining what the meta will be for the game.
Balance and the meta
To begin with the balance part of the Overwatch Developer Update, Kaplan addresses the fact that previous patches have been incredibly slow when it comes to changing the balance. The Overwatch community has been pretty outspoken when it comes to wanting more variety. So, coming up for the players, is something that’s been dubbed: The Experimental Card. Essentially, within your main menu when searching for a variety of games, from time to time a card will pop-up that says Experimental.
Though the Overwatch Developer Update didn't confirm how many, the card will contain a set amount of changes that players can experiment with should they want to. These could vary from time to time. The biggest takeaway here is that this feature will be available to all owners of the game, including console players (finally). It will also allow XP progression to take place within the main body of the game. Kaplan continues by mentioning that it will take a few weeks for the first experimental card to arrive, but players will notice it almost immediately. In addition, there will be a lot more aggression from the development team when it comes to balance changes and reverts. The updates will deliberately target the meta this time around, which is pretty huge for the game.
Season 21 and competitive play
Overwatch is in its 21st season and it’s finally going to get some quality-of-life changes that the scene has long since needed. So, coming in Season 21 (beginning in March 2020) and coming to competitive only, Hero Pools will be introduced into competitive play. Lasting one week only, the Hero Pool aims to include only a certain amount of heroes before changing to something completely different the next week.
While we can personally understand the need to introduce something that prevents players from stagnating on particular heroes, one has to wonder how this will impact the competitive community as a whole. If this keeps the meta more fluid and changing constantly to keep the game fresh, we're all for it as some repetitive competitive games can be far too much sometimes.
A huge effort will also be put into the game's anti-cheat policy that the devs are working hard on. Details were not explained in the Overwatch Developer Update, but Kaplan assured the viewers it’s something that’s in his interests and the companies interests to continue to work hard on.
The Overwatch League
The changes won’t just affect public players, but will professional players, too. Confirmed in the Developer Update, the Overwatch League will be implementing a version of Hero Pools as well. A blog that will describe the approach the developers will be taking to professional play, which, apparently, they were pretty excited about.
In closing
Our first Overwatch Developer Update of the year quite honestly shakes the game up and its esports scene pretty hard. With these new additions and changes, it will be interesting to see how the community as a whole reacts. Currently, the video on YouTube is overwhelmingly liked, though of course, this does not mean the community as a whole will like it. The full link to the video can be found here:
