I think he’s saying the opposite. This is already heartbreaking for the morale of the OW team, they don’t need the constant baseless speculation and doomsaying to add on top of losing a pillar of their team.
^
the communities on r/overwatch and r/Competitiveoverwatch have meant so much to me. i just wanted to sign off one last time and thank you for all of your inspiration, shared stories and highlights, feedback, criticism and comradery.
whenever i think about the reddit communities, i always think of r/Overwatch as "timmy" (aka punch kid): bright-eyed, optimistic and r/Competitiveoverwatch as "brian" the slightly jaded older brother who realizes in the end that he actually loves overwatch but just kind of forgets it along the way sometimes...
either way, you're amazing and you made my career better. you made me a better designer and game director.
please take care of the overwatch team. they are wonderful, caring, brilliant people and they need you right now.
<3 jeffrey
Read morethank you all =]
<3
I share a birthday with Papa Jeff? This is the best gift ever.
happy birthday, jehk72!
the gift is all mine...
overwatch does not use any analysis of chat (voice or text) for matchmaking.
without going overly into details, overwatch match makes on:
--your matchmaking rating (MMR) - this is mostly affected by win/loss, with variance applied for certain conditions (i.e. brand new player, among other things)
--your region
--your ping
again, that's overly simplified. but that's basically it.
is there an official way to offer suggestions for new features to be added to the game? sometimes REALLY good suggestions get buried before they can ever reach your team!
we read this subreddit all the time. if it's a great idea, it will get visibility
/u/blizz_jeffkaplan youre an inspiration, thank you for your work on Overwatch <3
thank you so much for saying that. warms my heart. but i always remind people: overwatch is made by a whole team of amazing developers... i am just one tiny and equal part of that. but thank you.
Hey! Aspiring game developer here. I was wondering what some of the core aspects of creating a new hero are for you guys. What steps do you take in creating a new hero? Also, what are some of your core balancing values when it comes to heroes in general, or adding new heroes?
creating new heroes is a lot of fun. our process is interesting in that new heroes can come from story (76, ana), design (pharah) or art (winston). we really inspire each other with ideas and we'll add different heroes for different reasons. we're always talking about "what does the game need right now"
Throughout the development of Overwatch, has there been anything you're willing to share that you've regretted, or wished you had handled differently? Whether it be in regards to heroes, abilities, maps, things you wish you had done, things you wish you hadn't done, etc.
this type of question is very hard to answer because we all now have the benefit of hindsight.
sometimes i wish we had kept offense and defense heroes (rather than merging them into damage) and only allowing offense heroes to be played on attack and defense to be played on defense. i know that idea might sound crazy and stupid but i think it would have allowed us to more "all in" on some "niche" hero designs like Torb, Symmetra and Bastion. much of the issue we face with the hero balance on these heroes is our player expectations that these heroes should be fully viable on all situations, and that really wasn't our intent or vision for the game. we believed that with hero swapping, people would be more willing to adapt to "solve the problem". we're fighting some amount of human psychology and game design, i know.
the sombra arg is another standout... lol
Read moreWhat are you general thoughts on the power creep discussion?
i think this is a good discussion. but i think a lot of the good points get lost in the echo chamber of the internet. i'll see a good thread, video etc about power creep but then there is a lot of "group think" that happens and you have a bunch of people who think they are agreeing on something, when really they are not.
"power creep is bad!"... "btw buff roadhog, revert rein earthshatter nerf, buff pharah, you should TOTALLY be adding way more new heroes... and they all better do new cool stuff...." ... "oh yeah and power creep is bad!"
personally, i prefer when the conversation is more focused. is time to kill to fast? do we feel like CC is too much? too much/little healing? and then apply all of these to individual heroes....
we've added 11 new heroes to the game since it launched. obviously, the game is going to change when you do that. we just need to evaluate each hero on their own and make adjustments.
my personal feeling is that i would like to see less barriers and cc an...
Read moreDoes every hero have the same chances in Mystery Heroes? Because I often see Bastion, especially in the initial composition.
it's random
Can you give Sigma shoes please, or even socks
maestro
Do characters that exist in the story (like Mauga, sanjay, dae-hyun) have a chance at being heroes in the future?
absolutely. ana, doomfist, sombra are all examples of this...
What are your first thoughts when you hear someone saying "This hero is bad", "This hero is broken" or the like?
i just chalk it up to the way gamers talk and communicate.
as a culture (meaning gamers), we use a lot of "mean" language: broken, lazy, cancer etc....
i've just learned to filter that type of communication and focus on whether or not there is an issue. i can get sensitive and hurt... or i can just, you know, do my job.
As someone who’s been on the receiving end of numerous racist and homophobic slurs in the text chat channels, would perhaps censoring some of the words and obvious variants in those be within the realm of possibility to deter that sort of behavior?
i'm so sorry this happened to you. please make sure to report all cases of this. it really does do something and we take this very seriously. we have some ideas we would like to explore to minimize the ability for this to happen. in the meantime, i strongly recommend leaving the profanity filter on.
What map was the most challenging to make and what made it difficult? In reverse, what map were you guys most excited to bring to life in game?
well apparently paris and horizon are the most difficult...
i think bringing blizzard world to life was particularly special for our entire team
Will there ever be a option to combine your console account with your pc account, because know I look like a genji one-trick on pc while having lots of hours on tank on console and also I cant use the limited edition skins I got on console on pc.
we really like the idea of cross-persistence. it's something we would love to see for overwatch. the technical and business hurdles are immense but we are very passionate about trying to make something like this happen someday.
Who was the most fun hero to develop/design?
they are all super fun. it's seriously a dream job. most recently, i really liked being involved with sigma. josh and geoff drove the design of the character and qiu was the artist who drew him. but it was a lot of fun to help develop the character. i loved the idea of an absolute genius who is disassociated, who thinks we see what he sees, who thinks we understand physics and the universe the way he does. i loved the idea of a tragic victim who was being used for evil who was not evil himself....
If there was an Overwatch representative for Super Smash Bros who would be the most well fit for it
tracer plz
How has work progress been impacted by the overlooming global pandemic and subsequent social distancing and cancellations? Has work been slowed down significantly, and how has a typical work day changed as a result?
i think the suddenness of transitioning to working from home was a shock for many of us. we had been tracking the pandemic for months and making preparations, but i don't think the reality had sunk in that we were going to have to close down as well. we have offices in shanghai and seoul that had been shut down, so it was something blizzard had been dealing with for months. but the call to close irvine down (that's where the ow team is) came very quickly.
of all things, team 4 -- aka the ow team -- was in the middle of a move when it happened. most of us don't even know where our office stuff is... in some box somewhere in a new office?
the first few weeks were rough. there were a lot of tech and communication hurdles. i am sure you all have dealt with that as well. we were really lucky to have amazing technical staff on team 4 as well as really great blizzard it staff to make it go more smoothly.
now, we're all adjusting in our own ways. personally, i like working from home. in pa...
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