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This year's BlizzCon was an odd one on a lot of levels, but I was personally stricken by the number of friends and acquaintances who told me Overwatch. Last year and the year before, it was an obsession. Lately, though, it's felt a little stale. Despite that feeling, game director and proud internet dad Jeff Kaplan is not sounding the alarms just yet.
"I always think of the type of game Overwatch is-competitive 6v6 action shooter-it's the type of game that players are gonna ebb and flow in and out of, "he told Kotaku during an interview at BlizzCon. "I think that's very natural. I think that's very good, it's good for us, we're not obsessed Overwatch. "
That's not to say it's been a boring year for Overwatch. The game introduced a hero who's a mecha-piloting mega-genius hamster, for crying out loud. Kaplan and company also added to the game, leading to the best sportsmanship among players-a welcome development by any measure. Then there was the Overwatch League and spectator features designed with esports in mind. At the Same Time, Summer Games and Halloween Terror are a bit of a hit-and-run, and a "boop" -heavy meta turned the act of playing key roles in a slog for many players. Overwatch has been out for two years now. It's comfortably entrenched, but to some, it feels almost too comfortable-familiar to the point of complacency. And that can make them walk away.
Where Jeff Kaplan starts to get concerned, he said, "when we do not check it out, but indefinitely, perhaps even permanently." That's something that I think we would want to keep on our radar and say introduce a new hero? Are we not introducing new maps? Are we not introducing new modes? Well then, let's do that. '"
"I think sometimes panic when it's like 'Oh, my friends are playing Call of Duty this month, 'or whatever,' he said. "It's OK. Call of Duty is brand new, and it's super awesome. We're playing it too. Then we come back and play Overwatch and do for placements. "
"The complaints are real, and the complaints are accurate."
Ashe is the Overwatch team's latest attempt at giving the game a shot in the arm and probably the head, the limbs, the gut, et cetera. Kaplan hopes the cowgirl with a heart of obsidian (and a robot friend) will both deliver things and help address some of the game's more pervasive issues. Foremost, you'll notice that it's not a "boop machine" -that is, it's not capable of suspending tanks in motionless purgatory for several small eternities using stun and knockback abilities. That's by design. Players have been complaining about an overabundance of stun and disabling abilities in the game, and they have been told that they are "real" and "accurate."
"I think Brigitte is an interesting character in that she was one of the heroes that really escalated that discussion," he said. "She's really defined by her shield and that flail knockback in particular. We just straight up nerfed the bash shield. We changed the cooldown on a recent patch. We took another pass at Brigitte recently with reducing her shield damage. "
Doomfist, with his ability to knock around like helpless pinballs, is also in line for a nerve, though Kaplan has "nothing specific to report right now."
As for Ashe, well, she at least does not add to the problem.
"When it came to Ashe, we were very cautious," said Kaplan. "Just the introduction of Ashe, with us going 'Here's a traditional gun-based character who's more like McCree, more like Pharah.' She has a knockback on her, but you're not gonna see Ashe running into the fray with the specific intention of knocking people over for the most part. She's a stand-back character. "
Ashe can knock enemies back with her shotgun sidearm, but it's less an attack and more a defense mechanism. "The reason she has that knockback is what we call disengage," he said. "So if Pharah Gold Genji gets up on her, she can go 'Hey, get back from me' and then use her rifle. But characters do not lose air control when it does the knockback. She has no stuns on her. I think even looking at her design and seeing how much we chilled out; There's no major crowd control effect going on on Ashe. "
So if you or your friends decided to leave Overwatch'S balance and all the time you have spent in the near future. What will not change, according to Kaplan, are existing heroes' kits. Symmetra and Torbjorn, everyone else is set. At least, for now.
"We do not have an overhaul character on our list, which is just great," said Kaplan. "I think it's a necessity sometimes. Torbjorn and Symmetra were both in a place where they were more viable. But in general, I'm not a huge fan of reworks. "
Kaplan said that overhauls "push the reset button on balance" for heroes, and that's why he does not like them. They ask as many questions as they answer. In Symmetra's case, for example, people who are still getting along even after the rework, but Kaplan can not be sure if she's in a good place or not yet.
"With Symmetra, I am in wait-and-see mode," he said. "There's two elements there: One is, did we get the correct mechanics? Is this character doing the things we want them to do and occupying the gameplay space we hope that they occupy? And then the second part is the balance. We feel like, with characters like Torbjorn and Symmetra, they're mechanically doing what we want them to do now, but I do not know if they're balanced properly. "
Balance changes and overhauls, Kaplan said, are also part of the reason why other elements of the game ended up treading water this year. Players have always been disappointed in their annual events-ounce of lightning rods for lapsed players-are stuck in a rut.
"," Said Kaplan, "LFG, endorsements, overhangs, LFG, endorsements, and more," spectator mode.
Kaplan teased that there's more than just from events. If you're expecting the upcoming "Winter Wonderland", you should be aware of your own backyard after it's been blanked out. felt last year. "
Kaplan is more focused on what's going on in the future. When pressed for specifics, however, it could only be in his trademark "awkward dad accidentally doing ASMR" sort of way.
"I think we'll be pretty cool," he said. "When those moments happen, I think players will go, 'Oh, I get what you've been doing now.' It's always hard to get to grips with things too early. One week is a long time. Others are a bit more sympathetic, and they get that things take time. But the team is working harder than they've ever worked before. They're bigger than they've ever been before. So I really believe that there are great things coming for Overwatch. "
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