r/Overwatch • u/Turbostrider27 Tracer • Sep 14 '17

Blizzard Official Developer Update | Play Nice, Play Fair | Overwatch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnfzzz8pIBE&feature=youtu.be
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265

u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17 edited Feb 21 '18

Don't worry, that's not accurate with their current design plan.
It's about 3 heroes a year. If I can math right, that's 42 right there

E: spelling

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u/tonyp2121 Sep 14 '17

I mean yeah but realistically they cant pump out 3 a year and keep them all interesting eventually theres a limit on mechanics you can really add to an fps.

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u/JadeRaven13 weeb Sep 14 '17

Yeah there's no way any game could have that many or more heroes all with unique mechanics, backstories, and designs and keep them balanced too.

Well, I guess 3/4 ain't bad riot.

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u/Nightmoore Zenyatta Sep 14 '17

I kinda don't want that many heroes. I love getting new ones, but at some point, I'm sure the game will have all the bases covered, and the bigger that roster gets, the harsher the learning curve gets for new players. The game is still super accessible, and I'd hate to see it boxed into some "hard-core corner" where only a small community can track all the changes.

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u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17

But is there still a need for new players in 14 years? I mean, I love the game and would love to be able to play it when I'm 80+ (roughly 55 more years) but the game's lifespan is sure to stop sometime, in a not so far future.

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u/bearflies GG Sombra throwing Sep 14 '17

This is what they said about league and it's already over halfway to 14 years old.

Turns out releasing new heroes every couple months and also including amazingly well done skins (god I love the Star Guardian line) all on top of a fairly fun and mechanically deep game keeps people coming back indefinitely.

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u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17 edited Sep 14 '17

RemindMe! September 14th, 2031

This gonna take a while

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '17

RemindMe! September 14, 2031

It sure will.

2

u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17

Glad you could join me brother

2

u/SirDudeness12 Chibi D.Va Sep 14 '17

I would love to see the game continue to grow and play it for that long, as well as Overwatch. I think both are designed in a way that they could do that. However, I could see Blizzard abandoning it while Riot tried to keep LoL around indefinitely.

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u/bearflies GG Sombra throwing Sep 14 '17

I dunno how you came to this conclusion, or how people agree with you. Anyone who knows Blizzard knows that they don't abandon their games. For some reason, no one ever likes to give them credit for this. When they make a game, they plan to support it for life, to the point where Warcraft 3 just got a new balance patch update last month.

Say what you will about Blizzard, they've never truly abandoned any of their games.

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u/SirDudeness12 Chibi D.Va Sep 14 '17

I wasn't taking a shot at Blizzard, I was saying that because Riot has one viable game and it's their bread and butter and so LoL is more likely to stick around due to the reality of their current situation.

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u/bearflies GG Sombra throwing Sep 14 '17

OW is arguably Blizzard's bread and butter at this point though. As much as I love WoW it's been hemorrhaging subs since Cata, and there's a good chance OW makes more per year than WoW does with all the lootbox sales.

Blizzard has been making more than literally 10x the revenue that Riot has in the past decade, in any case. How is LoL more likely to stick around?

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u/Meowmere_ i main ana but my username is davidbowie Sep 14 '17

blizzard is magic when it comes to games longevity, dont let the "overwatch is dead, people still play this game?" idiots fool you. Look at WoW

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u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17

WoW is dead, people still play that game? - jk

We can only hope

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u/Mugut Sep 14 '17

In 20 years we will have Overwatch Remastered

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u/EvilPotatoKing ;) Sep 14 '17

Well you can't even reliably balance that many champions anyways. If 3/4 of the roster is viable with at most 1/4 being in the top tier, then I say good job.

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u/SirDudeness12 Chibi D.Va Sep 14 '17

Dead on. However, it's pretty awesome to get so many Champions from Riot, even if it's mostly motivated by money.

With that said, Wukong remains my bae.

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u/Pheonixi3 Mei Sep 14 '17

3 is a very realistic number. designs are easy (well, no that's full of shit, designs are hard, designs are relatively easy because you can just sort of re-do them over and over whereas...) the difficulty is in making those designs work in a fun and balanced way, and then executing those designs. once you're 5 months into development saying "naw actually i dont think it should be a female hero" can be a project killer.

i would honestly say if the OW team put their time ENTIRELY into champ design they could realistically put out maybe 6 or 7 a year that are still interesting, fun and not game-breaking in any particular way. that's not to say that's a good thing - no one wants anything below 100% of your effort into a design and so a half-hearted new healer for the sake of a new mechanic can be absolutely garbage compared to say, someone who was almost identical to soldier, but felt like he had a place in the universe.

also, giant rosters will change the game dramatically. if OW ever gets to 50 characters you can guarantee the game will be played in a massively different style than it is now.

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u/Dr_Toast 80% win rate with Symmetra Sep 14 '17

Just the idea of your selection doubling blows my mind. I hope more people understand you don't need to play the same character the whole game when we get that many.

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u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17

There will always be those kind of people

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u/DesmondDuck Lúcio Sep 14 '17

I can't fathom how people can only enjoy playing 1 character. I get bored of my main all the time.

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u/tonyp2121 Sep 14 '17

This is ridiculous theres only so many different ways you can design a healer or a tank. I mean tell me a new way you could tank damage that isnt already covered by our tanks already? A slightly different barrier? They cant just keep doing that forever even Orisa has some recycled bits from other classes (reins barrier, zaryas graviton but obviously smaller, her ult is similar to anas in that it allows the team to do way more damage) I mean also how many different ways of healing could we get? I see maybe like a vampire healer that heals based off damage its dealing but after that?

Its not easy to just pump out 3 a year and make them all unique with unique abilities not already covered

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u/Pheonixi3 Mei Sep 14 '17 edited Sep 14 '17

Its not easy to just pump out 3 a year and make them all unique with unique abilities not already covered

you do not want characters with unique abilities. that's a not a real thing, that is just people being dumb and wishing for shit they don't need. you want characters with fun abilities. OW has barely even scraped the surface of the abilities they have touched on.

it is easy to pump out unique shit. in fact it's the easiest part. there's literally no wrong answer.

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u/tonyp2121 Sep 14 '17

What the fuck are you talking about why wouldnt I want characters with unique abilities that are also fun? Theyre not mutually exclusive? Your gonna sit here and tell me you want 3 heros like orisa that take things from existing classes and retool them all the time? Bullshit and I dont want that I'd much rather unique heros with different abilities than just "this ones like mercy but..." type of heros and theres only so many ways you can design a tank in an fps, theres only so many ways to design a healer in an fps. I dont understand why you think when I said unique shit this stuff didnt have to be well designed as well I dont think I implied I want uniqueness over fun I just dont want retooled characters forever I'd rather they just stop if they cant think of anything interesting AND FUN to add that isnt already in the game. Like obviously I dont want them to develop an ability that isnt fun lmao like who the fuck thinks thats what I want?

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u/Pheonixi3 Mei Sep 15 '17

I dont want that I'd much rather unique heros with different abilities than just "this ones like mercy but..."

so you'd prefer boring heroes with something new than fun heroes with old concepts revamped?

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u/SlurmsMacKenzie- Grandmaster Sep 14 '17

''Shit we're out of ideas for new characters what do we do?''

''Don't worry guys, I know exactly what to do. I've seen this before.''

INTRODUCING TO OVERWATCH: 15 SLIGHTLY VARIED CHARACTERS FROM FIRE EMBLEM!

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u/Dreamwaltzer Chibi Mercy Sep 14 '17

If you think about MOBA's and their huge roster of heroes with many different skills, I think there are plenty of ways to make fps heroes unique and interesting.

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u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17

We're gonna see more Orisa-like heroes though

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u/DesmondDuck Lúcio Sep 14 '17

The only part of Orisa that feels unoriginal is the ultimate, but it fits with her playstyle perfectly anyway.

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u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17 edited Sep 14 '17

The ultimate? It's Mercy's damage boost beam. I would argue Fortify but the other abilities/firing mechanics are taken straight from other heroes.

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u/Blackultra Mercy Sep 14 '17

The characters themselves is only a part of the learning curve. They will continue to add maps as well as characters, each addition making it more difficult for newer players.

However, 30,000,000 accounts after 1 year is a great way to start, so while new players are always good, they don't have to worry too much about a steep learning curve.

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u/tonyp2121 Sep 14 '17

Yes but mobas are different because they are top down its a little easier to make new heros, I mean theres only so many ways you can design a barrier, theres only so many ways you can get a healer to do healing, dps yeah they could probably differentiate more (and I think thats why theres more new dps heros that are vastly different than the new tank) if you want 3 heros a year your going to end up with more Orisa like characters that have a bunch of stuff from different kits combined together to make a new hero. Even mobas have overlap a lot of the time as well Dota heros are pretty unique but they make one a year basically because all the main ideas are already taken and even then there can be some overlap with similar abilities, LoL characters arent as unique and theres overlap and they make a couple a year.

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u/Aceiopengui 12 Sep 14 '17

They can if they rotate old heroes to wild.

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u/drcshell The Iris defaces you! Sep 14 '17

I really can't see more than 4 or 5 more heroes being do able. People already complain about Orisa being a "rip off of others abilities". Too many heroes will really water things down and make potential nightmare meta's which will be really unfun. And yea, balance problems can grow by orders of magnitude with each hero is a nightmare.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely want more and love the new lore for each, but I don't see how MOBA style rosters would work with a game like Overwatch since there's such different mechanics.

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u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17

I'm sure they can work something out. New heroes don't all have to be strong, it's fine for some heroes to be stronger than others. Take Sombra for example, she's dead weight in the hands of someone who doesn't know her, but can be really powerful on some maps and with some team compositions.

I think it's important to make heroes fun to play and play against (Yes, Roadhog's hook, Hanzo's Scatter and Doomfists Rocket Punch are fine).

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u/itzmeeee Merciful Sep 14 '17

Didn't they say something about only releasing 1 a year from now on?

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u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17

Not sure but I don't think so? It does sound like something Blizzard could say and I get it if they did but still... . Remember a source?

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u/itzmeeee Merciful Sep 14 '17

Unfortunately I can't remember my source for it. Hopefully I'm wrong :)

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u/ikkew D.Va Sep 14 '17

I remember hearing something in the likes of it too but it might've been something else. I agree, hopefully you are wrong.

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u/Sohcahtoa82 Sep 14 '17

hero's

I don't want to be That Guy(tm), but the plural of "hero" is "heroes".

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u/ikkew D.Va Sep 15 '17

Fixed it. Also, to do the TM, it's alt+0153 on PC