Dev Posts/Updates (Continuous Discussion)

[Mister36]

"We just pushed out a new build with some more changes to test out:

Sombra
Hack
Hacked healthpacks can now be seen through walls for her allies.


Zenyatta
Orb of Destruction
Weapon spread removed.


We also have another build in the works, that will probably hit some time tomorrow. This build will include these changes:

Ana
Biotic Grenade
Impact damage and healing reverted to live values


Zenyatta
Orb of Discord
Targeting through barriers has been reverted"

The weapon spread being removed for Zen is pretty big, but they decided to revert the barrier pass change. Will be interesting.

 

[Tanooki]

The weapon spread being removed for Zen is pretty big, but they decided to revert the barrier pass change. Will be interesting.

I'm wondering if they feel the potential for dive comps was to strong with this change. With Wintson having his barrier up more often now, it would be a pretty efficient strategy. Orb the healer, let Winston dive in, and he can jump out before his barrier breaks.

 

[Pzycho]

Orisa releases on the 21st

 

[Mister36]

Jeff posts on Smurfing/Boosting:

"Apologies. I have been gone so I have not read every post in this thread. But I will give you some thoughts.

I think there are two separate concepts:

1) Smurfing. I would define this as an experienced player buying a second account to reset their account progress and internal matchmaking rating (MMR)

2) Boosting. This is behavior some players engage in in Competitive Play where one player is more skilled than their partner and attempts to "carry" the lower skilled player to a higher skill tier.

Boosting is bad and we are very actively working on preventing and punishing this behavior. Rules like the 500 SR differential in Comp above Diamond exist because of Boosting. There is nothing about Boosting that is acceptable and we want you to know that we are taking great efforts to minimize the impact on "fair" players.

Smurfing -- and I know this isn't what you want to hear -- isn't really that big of an issue. For example, a few weeks ago one of the Pro Overwatch players created a smurf account and was streaming from it. We were able to watch his MMR internally and compare it against his "main" account. Within 15 games, the MMR's were equal. I know there is a very bad perception of Smurfing. But the reality is, skilled players are moved rapidly out of lower skill situations.

I've also personally witnessed a few cases of players assuming someone is smurfing when they are not. One of the people I play with is highly skilled. He played a ton in the beta. He works on the Heroes of the Storm team and plays Heroes most nights. But occasionally he comes and plays OW with us because he really enjoys the game. As a result, he is way lower level than we are. Most of us are 3-5 stars... and he is about level 30. Every time we group with him, someone accuses him of being a smurf. But he's not.

Anyway, we will always monitor deviant behavior and if we feel like there is behavior occurring that hurts honest, fair players, we will take action. We are definitely working on the boosting issue."

 

[Mister36]

Also Sombra, Hanzo, and Zarya have Legendary skins coming in the future.

 

[Mister36]

Season 4 of Competitive will be ending May 28th 5PM Pacific/8PM Eastern

They will be adding a countdown in game soon, and it will be a shorter offseason.

 

[Tanooki]

PTR Update just hit today.... less duplicates!

"Please note that the below patch notes only include changes currently available for testing on the PTR. While many of these changes will also be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in a future patch, the PTR is PC-only and therefore will only reflect changes coming specifically to that platform.

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

Loot Box Updates

We always want the experience of opening an in-game loot box to feel exciting and rewarding, and in our latest patch we’re working to improve that experience in two key ways. First, we’re drastically reducing the amount of duplicates players will receive when opening loot boxes. Second, to compensate for this reduction of duplicate items, we’re also increasing the overall amount of credits players will receive from loot boxes. On average, players should be earning just as many credits, if not slightly more, from loot boxes than they did prior to these changes.

To help us test this update, all players who log in to the PTR this patch cycle will receive five (5) PTR Loot Boxes. These are standard loot boxes that will only be available on the PTR. Any items earned from loot boxes or unlocked via credits on the PTR will not transfer over to your live account.

New Highlight Options

Our highlights system has received several major updates:

The game will continue to automatically generate highlights for you based on your recent gameplay. These auto-generated highlights—now categorized as "Today's Top 5"—will be surfaced on a daily basis and persist for a full 24 hours (or until the game client is patched, whichever happens first).
Players can now generate their own highlights! The ability to capture 12 seconds of your own gameplay has been added to the game, and can be bound to a single button of your choice (or a button per highlight slot) in the Options menu under “Request Highlight.” These player-generated highlights will be saved under a new section called “Recently Captured” and will persist until the game client is patched. Players can have up to 36 recently-captured highlights stored at one time.
With the above, players can now record any of their "Top 5" or "Recently Captured" highlights, exporting them as a video file to their gaming platform’s designated media library (on console) or directory (on PC). On PC, players will also have the option to select the quality at which these highlights are exported, supporting up to 4K at 60 FPS for Windows 8 or higher operating systems, and up to 1080p on Windows 7.
To learn more about this feature, check out our recent developer update: https://youtu.be/OkYJlPMdWNA

General

Custom Games and Game Browser

Clarified the text on the "Flag Carrier" options under the Capture the Flag settings for Custom Games
Removed the "Projectile Speed" and "Projectile Gravity" options for heroes who do not have projectile weapons
User Interface

Added ability to create customized reticles
Reticle options can be found under the "Controls" tab in the "Options” menu (click the "Advanced" expander under the "Reticle" heading)
BUG FIXES

General

Fixed a bug that could cause the user interface to incorrectly indicate that an enemy player has been hit when colliding with them
Fixed a bug that could allow projectiles that would normally pierce shields (i.e. Reinhardt’s Fire Strike) to pass through other surfaces
Heroes

Fixed a bug that could cause eliminations from Junkrat’s Total Mayhem to be mislabeled in the kill feed
Fixed a bug that allowed Roadhog’s Chain Hook to latch on to Orisa’s Supercharger
Fixed a bug that allowed Sombra to take damage after activating her Translocator
Maps

Fixed a bug that caused AI-controlled players to perpetually move toward the objective on the Gardens point in Oasis
Fixed a bug that prevented Training Bots from facing the right direction and returning to their original location after being moved by player interactions on the Practice Range
Fixed a bug that could cause D.Va to fall through the floor while boosting into the ground in a specific area on Volskaya Industries
User Interface

Fixed a bug that caused the Heroes of the Storm promotional portraits to appear locked, even after being unlocked
Fixed a bug that could cause an error message in chat if you attempted to spectate a new player while already spectating another player
Fixed a bug that could cause the chat window to be placed too high on the main menu, blocking menu options
Fixed a bug that prevented text from wrapping in the Report Player text box"

 

[Mister36]

WOO Highlight changes.

Also I opened the 5 in the PTR and I got no duplicates. My PTR account was at about level 400

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Sweet: Savable highlights!

Freaky Awesome: FEWER FREAKING DUPES!! You've no idea how many loot boxes I open to see "DUPLICATE: 5Cr, DUPLICATE: 10Cr, DUPLICATE: 5Cr, DUPLICATE: 5Cr"...

 

[FireHazard772]

Fixed a bug that allowed Roadhog’s Chain Hook to latch on to Orisa’s Supercharger

..LOL!

Haven't seen this myself but can only imagine what happens.

Nice to see they're finally adding a highlight system and dealing with loot-box duplicates

 

[Mr. Lemming]

..LOL!

Haven't seen this myself but can only imagine what happens.

Nice to see they're finally adding a highlight system and dealing with loot-box duplicates

Okay, that I didn't see... Might explain why I saw a supercharger seemingly kill itself in the kill feed last night though.

 

[Mister36]

Okay, that I didn't see... Might explain why I saw a supercharger seemingly kill itself in the kill feed last night though.

I think that just shows when it runs out by itself.

 

[Mister36]

A long post by Jeff regarding balancing:

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20757706588?page=2#post-24

 

[Johnny]

Holy hell that was a long post. I agree with his thinking.

 

[Mister36]

Big update for Reinhardt Issues:


Following up from an earlier post, here is where we are at with reported/known/reproducible Reinhardt bugs and issues.

A few of the addressed issues (Fire Strike hit box, for example) were fixed before 1.13. The rest have either been fixed or iterated on in 1.13. All of these fixes should be available on the PTR by this afternoon.

Addressed Reinhardt Issues

• Fire Strike hit-box was too small
• A host of hammer swing issues affected by high network latency have been addressed
• We’ve also increased Reinhardt’s hammer swing speed by 10% in general in 1.13
• Several animation cancelling bugs (also high network latency related) have been fixed
• Fire Strike and Charge animations now synch correctly regardless of network latency
• Charge reliably pins targets instead of knocking them back (Note: we fixed a number of issues and all of the issues we were reliably able to reproduce. Because charge is a cone-based attack and latency is involved, there might be other issues that surface. Providing us reproducible steps or video clips will help us if additional issues arise)
• Charge reliably pins targets when moving up steep stairs/ramps (see above note)

Remaining issues:

• Earthshatter isn’t picking up targets under certain circumstances. We intend to fix this issue in the next patch

 

[Tanooki]

• Charge reliably pins targets instead of knocking them back (Note: we fixed a number of issues and all of the issues we were reliably able to reproduce. Because charge is a cone-based attack and latency is involved, there might be other issues that surface. Providing us reproducible steps or video clips will help us if additional issues arise)

I haven't played on the PTR, but does this mean, you no longer have to hit your target straight on? I know if you clip them on the side, they get knocked up/back. Is this not the case anymore?

 

[Mister36]

I haven't played on the PTR, but does this mean, you no longer have to hit your target straight on? I know if you clip them on the side, they get knocked up/back. Is this not the case anymore?

Don't know exactly, but there has been a lot of issues with rein charging people nearly straight on and they bounce off. Not too sure what it specifically means regarding the stairs.

 

[Mister36]

Junkrat Changes on next PTR: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20758326009?page=4#post-70

"

Junkrat:
- Concussion Mine, damage reduced to 90
- Junkrat Trap, increase damage to 110
- Concussion mine, reduce cooldown to 4 seconds

Results
- Trap+Mine = 200 damage
- Grenade+Mine = 210 damage
- Trap is way more deadly.
- Can't spam 2 mines and kill 200HP. For balance reasons.
- Grenade + Mine is a much more frequent and consistent combo
- Junkrat's survivability and mobility goes way up because he can use a ConcMine every 4 seconds to engage/retreat.

This is pretty close to what we're trying with him, and what will likely be on the PTR when it comes back up. Currently on our internal builds Junkrat has 2 charges of his Concussion Mine. This allows you to do all kinds of cool stuff like launch yourself into a fight and still have a charge to escape with, or launch yourself up into a Pharah and still have a charge to try and kill her with. Previously this was possible before but you had to plant one on the ground and then wait for the cooldown to come back before doing this. That is still possible, which allows for a triple jump now if you want/need that, but now it is a lot more reliable to do with 2. It has been a ton of fun to play with so far.

We're also looking at making his ult a bit better. We're experimenting with a movement speed increase or a health increase on the tire. We wouldn't do both things but in either case it should be more reliable to use in more situations. "

 

[Mr. Lemming]

That is still possible, which allows for a triple jump now if you want/need that, but now it is a lot more reliable to do with 2.

Heh, Blizz states earlier Genji's double jump made him incredibly hard to balance, basically is testing a Triple Jump Rat. XD

Happy to see some possible love for his ult too, that thing is easily the second easiest ult to counter (first being Pharah's)...

 

[FireHazard772]

Don't know exactly, but there has been a lot of issues with rein charging people nearly straight on and they bounce off. Not too sure what it specifically means regarding the stairs.

Regarding the stairs, haven't played OW in awhile and I'm assuming this is what they are referring to as well, but quite often when charging it would stop (and/or pin anyone that was grabbed) at the top of a staircase when a Rein was charging up a flight of stairs.