Spedrayes

Can we get more details on the hero bans system you are looking at? Would it be a single ban per team? Or would we get one for each role? Would there also be protects? I've always loved the idea and I think it's great you're giving it a chance!

Want to clarify here that the first time we do this it will be for a limited time as an experiment. With that said, we're still discussing how exactly it will work in the match flow and where we put this experiment. Should everyone get a ban against one hero in their role? Should this experiment actually run in competitive for a weekend or should it get its own queue? How long is this phase before you select heroes, how much time does a team need to feel like they are strategizing but not so long it significantly increases the match length?

Those are the sorts of questions we talk about in our design meetings around this. I think any sort of ban system in Overwatch has the chance to be fairly polarizing, especially when your main gets banned. The point of the experiment will be to gather some initial feedback and make sure that if we ever move forward with permanently adding bans, we've covered all our bases.

DreamPolice2235

Thoughts on potentially swapping his miniguns from ammo to a heat system like Orisa?

Right now, there's not a strong desire to potentially make such a swap. Heat systems give significantly more damage uptime compared to traditional ammo systems. They're functionally just a constant reload you can cancel at anytime, unless you hit 0 ammo. The reload time gives players a window of opportunity to avoid his fire.

darthnick426

Idk if this will be seen but, I know it was mentioned that there are a certain number of heroes that the team is looking at for reworks or kit tune ups. You mentioned Wrecking Ball as being at the top of that list. Is Reaper being looked at for a rework at all? I love his current kit but he does seem prime for a rework since he has an available ability slot.

And then on an unrelated note: any plans for a Talon Heavy themed Mauga skin? I would love to have that one.

Thanks for taking the time to do the Q&A!

Reaper is also on that list! Had our first brainstorm and have aligned on our overall goals for what we want to see with Reaper's abilities. One of those goals is modernizing Reaper's kit, Shadow Step and Wraith Form standing out there.

We may also explore some new abilities for Reaper (on the right-click), but don't want to take the space just because it's available. If we add something there, we'll want it to give him slightly more decision making in-combat than he has currently.

hello_biscuit

mauga's ult is pretty interesting in that almost nothing can escape from it- afaik, the only ways out are sym TP and lifeweaver pull (also emp if you count that as "escaping")- how does the team determine which abilities can "counter" which ults? is it more about consistency between ults, the power levels of each ability, the heroes that are likely to be played in matchups, technical limitations of the game, or is it a little less premeditated and a little more played by ear?

This is usually trying to be consistent with game mechanics. We do make exceptions when necessary for the sake of game balance, but the less often we need to do that the easier it is for players to learn and understand these many interactions across multiple heroes.

Mauga's ultimate tethers are applying what we internally call "Mobility Lock" which disables movement skills. Other things that use this mobility lock are Junkrat Steel Trap, Cassidy Magnetic Grenade hinder effect, Zarya and Sigma ultimates. For gameplay consistency, you should be able to use Symmetra Teleporter and Lifeweaver's Lifegrip against those abilities.

KrustiBread

What are the team’s thoughts on Mauga’s Cardiac Overdrive currently? It often feels like he is too tanky when the ability’s active but too fragile when it’s inactive/countered, along with the visual effects being hard to discern at times.

We are reducing his damage, and those changes went live in this morning's hotfix patch (https://overwatch.blizzard.com/news/patch-notes/). This change will inadvertently affect how much life steal he receives during Cardiac Overdrive, making him a little less tanky.

Rotimi_Pika

Could you tell us some of the scrapped or early abilities you had for mauga?

Just like how you showed us illari abilities that were scrapped, I would love to see what ideas you had early on for mauga

Game design goes through a lot of iteration to find the most engaging combination of mechanics within the scope of our goals. We naturally try a lot of prototype variations even with a strong starting idea.

We tried a few alternate mobility abilities for Overrun. One of the first ideas was a short range dash that would toss enemies into the air behind him if you impacted them. It was fun to use but the transition from third person to first person and trying to turn around to shoot them wasn't easy, and solutions like automatically doing a 180 with the camera took away control from players.

The weapons had a couple alternates such as a flamethrower or incendiary grenade launchers. There were a few attempts at having two very different firing weapons in each hand, so one being hitscan like it is now and the other being a travel time projectile. It didn't play as well when trying to fire both at the same time unfortunately, especially in versions where they have different firing rates ...

T_Peg

Have you considered retouching some of the visuals of effects in the game? There was recently a post showing an Orisa who was burned, nanoed, and at least one other thing and it was extremely hard to tell the difference at times. In addition to this Mauga's bullets tend to "splash" on the victim's screen and in addition to the burning makes it very difficult to see at times.

As we inevitably add more heroes to the game, with their own set of abilities and visual kits, we'll continue to look at past vfx and new vfx to make sure they all play nicely together.

We always strive for clarity but the Orisa post was a great example of how it can be difficult to read some of those stacking effects. Team is currently talking about solutions for that and hears the feedback on the readability for some of Mauga's abilities.

BEWMarth

I really enjoy Mauga’s “dual” guns gameplay. Setting people on fire with one gun and getting to crit with the other is very fun. Unfortunately it feels like the best way to play Mauga is to shoot both guns at the same time, making his interesting gameplay mechanic an afterthought.

Are there any plans to incentivize Mauga’s alternating gun gameplay?

We'll have to see how this develops over time as there's always a learning curve for new heroes. Shooting both guns is not always more effective due to the large spread and more random nature of it. Learning when to use each firing mode to your advantage is part of the fun. Generally if enemies are further than 15 meters or so you'll want to use the alternating primary/secondary fire.

gob384

With Mauga's release, there were a few other balance changes like Queen's tighter spread, and Rammatra's armor. Were these changes made with Mauga's tank busting in mind? (for example leaving Roadhog and Rienhardt unchanged to see match up data) Or independently planned changes prior to his release?

We wanted to lift up some other tanks that we knew would have a particularly hard time with Mauga, but the changes themselves weren't necessarily tied to their direct matchup with Mauga. The change to Doomfist's Ultimate for example was something we believed would help players engage with it more regularly, the change to Winston's primary fire helps him in a number of matchups.

For Roadhog, we saw internally that he had quite a hard time with Mauga so even though he had been performing quite well across our rank thresholds, we decided to hold off on any changes. How Roadhog slots into the meta will be made more clear with upcoming Mauga changes and Mauga's inclusion into Competitive.

SonOfGarry

What are some plans to curb back Mauga’s ability to punish enemy Tanks? It’s one of the less-interesting portions of his kit but also one of the biggest things making him so strong right now.

Mauga is intended to be an aggressive, high damage output tank as he offers less in defense to his team compared with other tank options and doesn't have great mobility. We're lowering Mauga's weapon damage in general which will help with some of this where it can feel extreme at times.

He has good and bad matchups within the tank role, which is great for creating some depth, so it's not necessarily a role-wide problem. Sigma/Dva match up well and have an advantage against him, Roadhog/Junkerqueen/Ramattra are fairly even matchups, Zarya/Rein can do decently but require more support from their team, and Mauga is strongest against the dive tanks and Orisa.

Dear_Structure200

Hello and thank you for organizing this AMA. I’ve appreciated the communication around Overwatch 2; it’s been positive. I have a specific query about Wrecking Ball. During Flats’ stream with Alec, there was a mention of ongoing changes for him. The past two reworks have truly improved gameplay, and as a Wrecking Ball main, I’m eagerly anticipating potential alterations. Could you provide further details on the timeline for these changes and perhaps delve into the specific plans for modifying his abilities?

We playtested a first round of Wrecking Ball changes last week and think it's off to a good start. Overall, we are looking at making it a bit easier to play alongside Wrecking Ball with various support heroes, increase Ball's options in combat, and implement some quality of life changes.

In terms of timeline, it depends on how far we go with some of the changes and what's required there. It could end up as a bigger balance patch, it could end up with giving Wrecking Ball a new ability. Right now though, I think it'll lean closer to the first and not need the same sort of support that Roadhog and Sombra needed. Hopefully get something out there in the next few seasons.