On April 1st 2020, Overwatch introduced new patches for their damage heroes. But before I get into that, a quick description of Overwatch;
Overwatch is a 6v6 FPS game (created by Blizzard) where teams have to complete the objectives given to them to win (e.g attackers take a control point on the map while defenders stop the attackers until the time limit expires). There are 3 roles that players can choose from; Tank (who can take a lot of damage), Damage (who do most of the damage dealt) and Support (who are the healers of the team). At time of this post, the default team composition is 2-2-2 (2 tank, 2 damage and 2 support). However, Overwatch has recently introduced a new mode to change the formula of gameplay; Experimental.
Experimental is a mode that allows Blizzard to test new mechanics without putting them into permanent play, acting as a public test room (PTR). This new mode is where the new patches have been applied, and these patches focus on 4 damage heroes and 1 tank hero; Ashe (who can deal damage short and long range), Genji (a ninja who can double jump and reflect damage), Mei (who can freeze and slow down enemies using ice), Pharah (who can fly and fire rockets that can send people off the map), and Reinhardt (a tank who can defend teammates with his shield and focuses on melee attacks).
The patches for each hero in brief are the following; Ashe gained more ammo per round and is able to fire quickly while in scope (which deals more damage compared to attacks not in scope), Genji’s secondary fire recovery rate was lowered allowing faster reload times, Mei’s primary fire got decreased, meaning her ability to freeze enemies is more difficult, but her secondary fire’s max ammo got increased, allowing her to fire more long range shots, Pharah’s primary fire got a damage boost but her knock back effect got lowered, meaning that while her rockets do more damage, it is now harder for Pharah to knock enemies off the map, and Reinhardt’s knock back resistance got decreased, making it easier for him to be knocked off the map.
As mentioned above, these patches are not in the base game yet, which allows Blizzard to see what works and what doesn’t. If players do not like these changes, Blizzard usually listen and they react accordingly. Experimental mode allows everybody to play the game and have an opinion as Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo Switch players can now try these new features, while previously these patches were exclusive to PC players.
Blizzard typically releases large patches once a month, they do smaller bug fixes every couple of weeks and they introduce a new character every 3 to 4 months (although Blizzard recently confirmed that their newest hero being introduced, Echo, would be the last hero released until the game’s sequel, Overwatch 2). The team who work on Overwatch typically focus on making the game as smooth and as enjoyable as possible for their players, whether it be fixing hero balancing, fixing bugs or adding new modes such as cooperative modes that give players an insight into the lore of Overwatch.
If I was running my own studio (and I hope I can someday), I would take inspiration from Overwatch and focus on what makes my players happy. I would listen to my audience and if there was a feature in the game that the player base collectively did not enjoy, or if there was a feature that everybody wanted in the game, I would do my best to complete their requests. I would also encourage any and all feedback on the game, and (depending on the game) I would add a mode similar to Experimental, allowing players to test new mechanics for my game and allow them to give their thoughts on what they think was good and what they think didn’t work.
So thanks for reading this post, it was enjoyable to write about one of my favourite games, and I hope you enjoyed reading it too! 😀
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