Will there be cross-platform progression implemented into Overwatch 2 between PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch?
We're pretty excited about the possibilities of cross-play and cross-progression, but we don't have anything to announce, today. However, given the additional complexities of cross-progression, it would probably make most sense to tackle cross-play, first and then explore progression as a potential add-on, if we go this route.
Any progress on cross play and cross progress?
I answered this in a question a bit further up, but I'll repost, here, just in case you miss it:
We're pretty excited about the possibilities of cross-play and cross-progression, but we don't have anything to announce, today. However, given the additional complexities of cross-progression, it would probably make most sense to tackle cross-play, first and then explore progression as a potential add-on, if we go this route.
Will we ever be able to use custom assets in workshop mode? Custom maps would go far, but also custom models for making your own hero.
Will OW ever be moddable? Will we ever be able to host custom servers?
Aaron would love it if we could get this in! Unfortunately, that's a really complicated problem for us given how our asset system works. We've tried, and will continue to try, to expand workshop as much as we can to extend custom creation as far as possible. But custom assets is a massive challenge. It's been something we've wanted to give to the community for years, but up to now we just haven't found the right way to deliver it without an unrealistic investment of resources.
Are you going to make more/better pre-made A.I.s for the workshop in OW2 or are you just going to remove the pre-made A.I.s ?
We've been doing a substantial amount of work in the areas of AI for Overwatch 2... which is probably obvious given that we'll have PvE. :) Much of those improvements should apply across the game, workshop included. But Workshop plans for OW2 are still quite fluid.
How would it be more difficult than crossplay... for crossplay you have to do a lot of server tweaking and networking get around that could take well over a year to set up. Cross progression all you'd have to do is link your psn,xbox live, and switch account to your blizzard account, write some code to catalog each skin they have unlocked on each platform, and have each skin that is unlocked be unlocked on their blizzard account, and when the game loads in on another platform the servers recognize your unlocked skins via your blizzard account.
The difficultly centers around how we track entitlements and policy concerns with platform manufacturers. There are also a lot of technical concerns, but most are manageable with a good amount of work. It's all feasible, just a LOT more ducks to get in a row. And, unfortunately, the more groups involved, the more complicated something becomes. And cross-progression just gets more complicated, in that regard.
Will the PS5 get a official 120 FPS patch before OW2 arrives?
We don't have any plans to do so, at the moment. We would have to invest a non-trivial amount of time to upgrade original Overwatch to recognize and separately treat the PS5 (it involves changing the platform SDK). Instead, we're taking that time to focus on making OW2 the best we can on the next gen consoles.
Will there be a Beta?
Almost certainly, yes. If I knew when, I couldn't tell you. If I told you, I'd have to kill you. But u/blizz_akeller is our resident secret-leaker, so you might give him a try! :)
Any major changes to the game engine, visual rendering, texturing as thus far?
Yes, we've had a lot of changes to the game engine. Many optimizations, better lighting, and many new features have been added. PvE has also allowed us to look much more at how our environments tell our story, so we've added many features that help with that. In addition, since the hardware landscape has changed a lot since Overwatch was launched, we're taking the opportunity (both on the artist side and the technical side) to beef up our high end features and assets.
Some of the changes and new features to Overwatch 2 look incredible, such as the higher detail, new way of rendering eyes and hair, and one I especially remember from the gameplay trailer and Rio mission, the giant null sector ship in the sky. Now, all these changes look amazing, but as a solely switch player, I am starting to get worried that the switch will just bit be able to cope with these upgrades. PvP will probably run smoother (with only 9 other heroes in screen, maybe a B.O.B., with the 5v5 change). Is the game still planned to release in the Nintendo switch, and if it is, what compromises are having to be made (I expect that they would be mainly in PvE.
Thankyou for reading and I hope someone can answer my question! u/blizz_jlafleur and u/billwarnecke I expect would be the best for this question :)
Also keep up the good work the game looks awesome, I think you are doing a great job u/blizz_akeller
Great question. As hardware has advanced since the launch of Overwatch, we are extending the OW2 engine with more high-end features. However, we're also working hard to make sure all of our platforms get the best experience, even in PvE. Switch is a little more challenging than some, and we'll have to make some compromises there. For that reason, some of the higher end visual enhancements might not be visible, there. We'll focus on making sure all of the gameplay-related features get in, first, and then accentuate with additional features as much as possible.
How will OW2 impact the workshop? Im sure it'll come with great technical difficulties but do you plan to keep the workshop for OW2 or even improve it?
Thank you for so much great memories :)
We don't have any plans to remove it. If anything, we'd like it to be able to leverage some of our improved and new features to make it even better. We don't have a full picture of Workshop for launch, at the moment, though.
I think that the team had made great decision with changing the team composition to be 5v5, but I think most reason why people get upset on that change, is because of the tank synergy we have right now. Has the team thought about forgiving that in any way, by idk changing dps maybe?
One of the core goals of Overwatch hero design is to create these fun synergies and combos throughout the entire roster. It certainly sucks to lose some of these combos, but a lot of game design is making a call to decide if what you are gaining is worth what you are losing. In this case, after significant playtesting, we think its more than worth it for the benefits we gain out of 5v5.
It seems that the tanks with OW2 go more in brawly direction than protect and peel direction, which I am scared makes the game more 'watch out for yourself' than 'watch out for your teammates', and I don't like this direction. Should we expect loads of changes from what we have been shown on the stream in terms of tanks?
I think we want to make sure we offer a lot of different options for different playstyles, as always. As a broad answer, yes tanks will be getting more brawly. But looking at heroes like D.Va, she is gaining much more matrix meter and she isn't losing her flight knockback or anything else (at the moment anyway), so she'll be even better at peeling than before. Even our current Zarya iteration allows her to potentially use 2 of her barriers back to back on an ally instead of shielding herself, which actually significantly increases her peeling potential as well.
What is most-challenging thing about developing OW2 and maintaining OW1?
Really the biggest thing is how different OW2 has become, and how it is constantly changing. We have to keep in mind how OW1 is currently playing and what changes we think would be best for it, without thinking about how different they already are in OW2. Its like juggling 2 different metas/environments, and its easy to mix them up in my mind and/or memory sometimes.
Pineapple on pizza - yes or no? :)
More people need to open their minds, hearts and most importantly, mouths, to the fact that pineapple on pizza is always great. Bonus: Try pineapple + jalapeño on a pizza together, its magical.
That's disgusting.... ;)
What was one of the biggest obstacles you overcame when you started working on overwatch?
The Overwatch team was formed from the ashes of Titan, and much smaller in size. While we learned a lot during that development, it certainly was a blow to our confidence, as any set-back can be. But the one thing we knew we had from the beginning was each other and we bonded together extremely well. Getting that confidence back and making it to the success of the Overwatch announce at BlizzCon was a big hurdle to overcome. Our trust in one-another and the incredibly open and supportive atmosphere we have on the team really enabled us to get over that.
What was the hardest ability to put in the game?
From a tech perspective, I think the hardest might have been Echo. Her ability to duplicate an opposing hero brought a ton of challenges and bugs. In most areas of Overwatch, our ideas for what we would like to do are ever expanding in complexity. But we need to make it work with assumptions that we made years ago. Sometimes they don't mesh well. With Echo, it was a difficult clash to work out. In the end, she turned out to be a really fun hero, so it was worth the work. But there was a lot of engineering grey hairs generated around that one!
What does a typical day look like for the Overwatch team? Suppose life is normal and back in the office.
It differs a bit for everyone, but we usually start each day with a team playtest. Every other day we have a quick "team standup" where we discuss major initiatives we are working towards. And it's an opportunity to keep the team on the same page with where we are and where we're going and to celebrate achievements. For the rest of the day we are typically collaborating with one another in smaller strike teams, meetings, and individual work to drive features forward. At the end of each day we have another team playtest. Every day is different than the other and different for some individuals than others, but that's the very basics. The good thing is that it hasn't changed too much with COVID, though we do miss the face to face. Virtual face to face isn't quite the same. :)
Read moreQuestion from the r/Overwatch Discord:
Lightningkid11#1486: Can we get/are we ever going to get an Overwatch league style dev clash? With casters and everything? that would be so cool
I think we did do this at BlizzCon just before we shipped where we played some streamers. Back then it was great because we were the best Overwatch players in the world! :) I don't think we would fare as well, these days. But it would be a lot of fun. Fun side story: When we were in the final year or so of dev for Overwatch, we put in some somewhat long hours at the office. As a lark, our QA set up a multi-week tournament across the team to give us a moment to take a break, eat pizza and watch tournament games, shoutcasted by two teammates. The tournament games were SO much fun and drove us to push harder on spectator features and the plans for the league.
Read moreWas there any hero abilities that you thought would be easy to implement, but ended up causing major issues, or maybe caused you to completely scrapped the ability? My other question is what is the funniest bug you ever came across during development?
I had another reply where I mentioned the challenges of Echo, which has, arguably, our most difficult ability from a technical perspective. But, to be honest, we knew that one was going to be challenging going in. However, what I have found is that even with the "simplest" of abilities, we often find that they are harder than we thought. Often this is because we expand on our original ideas as we develop the hero. Other times it just is unanticipated challenges. One example of the latter is Moira. Her animation was very challenging and took a lot of work from our tech art and animation teams to get correct.
As for funniest bug, I don't have one that is popping into my head that is actually funny. There are a lot that seemed funny when on very little sleep, but not so much after a good night's rest! :)
Read moreWhat about wrecking ball's grapple? Did you ever try to implement it in a way where it can't go through other objects and be entangled?
Please don't give Geoff any ideas! :)
What is an unexpected way Covid impacted your workflow? Do you see it impacting the industry in the future with working from home more?
The workshop was a passion project of a few developers; are there similar projects that are currently being worked on, or some that didn't make the cut?
Who do you personally find the best designed hero in the roster?
And for a bit of a personal question; Do you have any tips on how to break into the industry in the current climate? I recently graduated and it is an awkward time, with some companies just not hiring. Have some priorities for new hires shifted? (Something like a bigger emphasis on independancy to proof you can work from home).
Bill hit some good ones. I'll add that another challenge is that we cannot just walk around the office seeing the cool things that everyone is working on or engaging in random conversations about what we can help with. We still have some of those over tele-conferencing, but it isn't as impromptu.
As to your "passion project" question, there are a lot of those on the team. From evolving the gameplay to introducing new, previously unplanned graphics features, to enhancing the effects in our game and even novel ways to reduce memory or load times. Every member of the team has their specific passions and areas of expertise and they often manifest in unplanned ideas that make the game so much better. I spoke about some of this at last BlizzCon, but it is an ongoing thing. We even have a week or two a year where we all think "outside of the box" about things we can add to the game that are awesome.
Read moreIs it going to be increasingly difficult to make her ult work with all new heroes or did you get it to a spot where it'll be easy to just insert new heroes into her ult
The biggest challenge, in that regard, was how we handle the budgets around the heroes and how we handle loading. It was tough, but we found a solution that would work (with some compromises). It should be okay for additional heroes, as well. But the imagination of our hero designers never ceases to amaze me, so perhaps I should knock on wood.
With the workshop features, have you ever though about making a map editor for Overwatch?
That's a great idea and something that we have thought about over the years. Unfortunately, it requires a decent amount of complicated technology changes as our engine and asset pipeline is primarily set up to deliver pre-made content. But it is something that we are continuing to consider.