A week after the Overwatch 2 PvP Beta began, the developers shared their thoughts in a lengthy blog post. They tackled four different topics throughout the post, each outlined by how the beta test has affected their decisions in that particular area.
From the word go, the devs have stressed that this beta test is but the first of many. A lot of the elements you see during the Overwatch 2 PvP Beta are works in progress, and their team are constantly trying to improve them.
It doesn't address the fact that the game largely feels like “Overwatch 1.1” for many fans and players, with the only major change being one less tank for each team. It feels like the base Overwatch game with a different typeface and an actually functioning scoreboard. The biggest offender of Overwatch 1.1 has to be the support role. The passive changes were frankly not enough and one less tank means less protection for supports. The gameplay as a support is largely similar to Overwatch, and there's really no reason to bother yourself with the beta if you're going to play support anyway. However, the post does discuss potential changes for the support role to remedy this, as well as announced new heroes.
They also mentioned the possibility of having Quick Play Open Queue in the beta to lessen queue times, which has since been confirmed in the patch notes that followed soon after. A lot of the 2.0 hero models are also in development, and their beta looks will not be their final graphics upon full release of the game.
The First Beta of Many
“The main goals for our first Beta were to test our shift to 5v5, the new maps and Push game mode, overall balance, and build and server stability. We believe 5v5 is a significant adjustment for players, and we have been happy to hear consistent and positive feedback about players having more fun, feeling a greater sense of impact in their matches, and enjoying a faster pace of combat and engagements,” said the post. The developers implied that the rules of the new game mode Push are still not final and will most likely be receiving some adjustments. They also addressed the matter of hero balance, and said that their approach will be “to make rapid adjustments to hero power levels,” and that players can expect the first Beta balance patch soon.
The devs continue to stress that this Beta test is only the first of many, and that Beta 1's focuses are gameplay, balance, and stability. With that in mind, a majority of Overwatch 2 right now are works in progress. They enumerated the UI elements like menu screens, player profiles, multiple time of day conditions in classic maps, and hero 2.0 looks as some of the aspects of the game not being publicly tested yet. In particular, the golden gun system, headshot indicators in the kill feed, and the audio mix were pointed out as “not a deliberate shift in the design aesthetic but rather an incomplete feature.”
Between this beta and the full release, the devs said that they “plan to add more content including heroes, maps, and features. There will be a significant amount of overall polish and refinement added in the form of enhanced UI, bug fixes, and more!”
“Quick” Play
In the Overwatch 2 Beta, a Ranked Mode was not made available. The devs said they recognize that the ranked mode is a great way to keep their players engaged but refrained from putting it in the beta for two main reasons. One was that, this being a test for game stability and balance, the priority was to get players in a game. Splitting the limited player base into two queues would have been detrimental to testing, as well as result in longer queue times. The second reason they gave was because “significant overhauls” for the ranked and competitive systems are currently in testing internally, but not yet ready for the beta test.
Due to the numerous changes to the roles, queue times are significantly longer for Tank and Damage players compared to Support players. The devs said that they understand that playing Support needs to be more attractive to players to combat the disparity in queue times between the roles. As a temporary fix to the long queue times, the Overwatch 2 beta test might have quick play classic with open queue enabled.
Plz Play Support
According to the post, a good majority of the heroes are in a healthy range for both play and win rate across different skill levels. A balance patch is planned to address the several heroes that are the outliers for these statistics. Like the beta tests, this upcoming balance patch will also be the first of many.
A direct effect of having one less tank is leaving support players more vulnerable to being flanked and dived. The support role passive was tweaked in Overwatch 2, aiming to give supports more survivability through more health regen. Despite this, playing as a support feels largely similar to the base Overwatch game, and the dev team is aware of this. To amend this, they revealed their plans to release more support heroes down the line. As a more immediate fix to the lack of new content for support players though, they are looking into reworking several supports. Some of them might be shipped in this beta test, but “more likely” will be in the next beta.
Sayonara, Medals
Finally, Overwatch received its most needed scoreboard in this beta. The scoreboard contains information about every player's Kill, Death, and Assist count, in addition to both teams' hero composition and your teammates' ultimate status. Both the Fire and Medal system will be retiring with this overhaul of the scoreboard.
“The original idea with the Medal system was to give positive reinforcement for personal performance and let players know individually how they were contributing to the team; but, as time went on, we realized that the information provided by medals led to varying interpretations by players. The team saw players incorrectly interpreting actual team performance based on the relative rankings provided by Medals. This was especially true early on in games when the statistical amounts were small. These observations led to the decision to remove the Medal and Fire systems and completely rework the Scoreboard screen and present more accurate information to players. ”
In addition to your KDA, other statistics are also available. Damage dealt, damage mitigated, healing done for each player can be viewed in the scoreboard as well. It now also follows a layout more consistent with other competitive games and sports, with the goal of offering players an overall more accurate view of the game. There will also be “personalized statistics” depending on which hero you are currently playing.
The dev team expressed interest in reworking the Fire system somewhere down the line to provide excitement to high-performing players. They also stressed that the scoreboard is a work in progress and that the layout is not final.
Since the dev post, the Overwatch 2 PvP Beta Patch Notes have been released. It features a plethora of bug fixes, as well as balance changes for numerous heroes. The audio mix that they pointed out in this post has also been adjusted. It also contains some buffs to Overwatch's newest hero Sojourn, as she has consistently underperformed compared to other damage heroes.
Despite all of these changes, the highlight of the patch has to be the fact that Quick Play Open Queue is now available, so no more 5 minute queue times (hopefully!)
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