Welcome to part two in our series on Overwatch 2’s newest way to play, Stadium! Today, we want to highlight what has been improved upon since you last saw Stadium in action in the Overwatch 2 Spotlight.
- Part 1 - Get Ready to Battle!
- Part 2 - Lessons Learned from the Playtests
- Part 3 - Coming Soon
- Part 4 - Coming Soon
After announcing Stadium as part of the Overwatch 2 Spotlight, we ran a closed Alpha where thousands of players tried out Stadium for the first time. We were incredibly excited by all the feedback we received: we addressed hundreds of bugs, made updated changes to balance, and added various quality-of-life improvements. We’re so grateful to everyone who participated.
Builds are the Key to Fun
The biggest takeaway for us was truly how much our testers played Stadium. Most players returned for at least five of the seven 4-hour sessions, and we couldn’t be more appreciative. The number-one comment we heard was how much fun folks were having creating new hero builds.
This was incredibly awesome for us to hear, as builds are what sets Stadium apart from the core game we all know. Instead of hero-swapping, it’s how you equip certain items and powers every round that drives the gameplay.
Improving the Player Experience
As an early build, the playtest helped identify a few points of friction that we’ve since worked on. The feedback received helped us improve a variety of things such as item and power balance issues, and some problematic builds that proved to be overly powerful. For example, play-testers quickly discovered Cassidy was able to one-hit knock out heroes with 350 health or more and have the ability to auto lock on with a critical hit… yes, it was terrifying, but we got that fixed. We’ve also improved the variety of items you can buy and sell, including items that can help counter against powerful builds.
The Mercy Rule
During these playtests, we had a “Mercy Rule” set so if a team won the first three games in a row, the match ended early. However, we quickly came to realize that sometimes a match isn’t exactly a stomp after the first three rounds, so we added a second condition before calling a match early. Now, if after a 3-0 the leading team has 15,000 Stadium Cash (or more) than the trailing team, the Mercy Rule will activate. Otherwise, at least one more round is played to give the trailing team a fair chance to reverse sweep.
We’ll be keeping an eye on the Mercy Rule and can tune it as needed in future updates. Our goal is to make sure every game has meaning while also not leaving players who are behind in a one-sided game from having to wait too long to be able to requeue for a new match.
Slowing Down Snowballs
Snowballing was also an issue in some matches. Even with bounties on key targets, a team that was significantly leading could access their more powerful items faster than the team catching up. Now, the trailing team will have Stadium Cash boosts, plus both teams earn increased passive cash throughout the match. It will still take extra effort to settle the score, but we hope this adjustment will prevent major snowballing.
We’re currently satisfied with the balance between all of our heroes, and we’re ready to launch. However, we’ll be watching your games very closely and plan to react quickly if any given item, power, or hero build starts to become too weak or too powerful, so keep an eye out for balance updates.
A Whole New Third-Person Perspective
Stadium is a unique mode with a lot of things happening around your hero, making it harder to see everything while in the first-person perspective. For this reason, Stadium is set to default to third-person view. However, those who prefer to stay in first-person perspective (looking at you, FPS purists!) can switch to first-person in the game settings.
Players in third-person perspective have new elements on their reticle to indicate when their hero is reloading or when their attacks are being blocked by line of sight. We’ve added a field of view slider and players can assign a key binding to toggle which shoulder the camera overlooks. And of course, all these settings can be customized for each of your favorite heroes.
Get Your Gameplan Ready
Stadium is just around the corner, and we can’t wait to see all of you group up with your friends and jump in the game. We still have a lot of things we want to cover in the days ahead too, including details on items and powers, and how you can create your own hero build.
Stadium is not just any mode for the arcade. It’s a permanent way to play Overwatch 2 alongside the core gameplay in Unranked, and Competitive. Stay tuned, as we’re planning updates for every season with more heroes, maps, items, and powers.
Again, thanks to all our content creators, fellow team members, and hundreds of players who jumped into the Stadium playtest last month. We know y’all can’t wait to jump in, but don’t worry, Stadium will be here soon!