Hey everyone! Scott here, reporting from the hero design team about a subject that’s always at the forefront of our minds: balance.
This is one of the trickiest parts of game development and often one of the hottest topics in the Overwatch community. We want to show you a bit of what that process looks like from start to finish and how we arrive at balance changes, from Hero-specific adjustments to whole-game modifications. You’ll also get a sneak peek at some changes coming to Season 17!
Data, Feedback, Action
If it wasn’t obvious from past Weekly Recall blogs and Director’s Takes, we’re big fans of data here on the Overwatch 2 team.
Some of our balance changes are inspired by tangible numbers that come from various sources, like pick rates or win rates. We aim to keep Heroes within a set win percentage range of 45-55, and if they deviate from it, we know something needs to be done. This is less about making all Heroes viable in every situation and more about ensuring no Hero is ever universally a “wrong” choice.
Hero Ban data has added a whole new set of information we can use and this feature essentially gives you all a direct line to the balance team by way of collected data. High ban rates are a concrete indicator that a Hero is an issue for a large subset of players, and leads us to take a much closer look at what we can do to improve the experience of playing against certain Heroes.
Contextualizing the data we’ve gathered is important and it helps us identify changes that need to be made. For example, Widowmaker has a decently high ban rate on sniper playgrounds like Havana, but that doesn’t mean she needs immediate changes—some players just don’t want to catch a headshot right out of spawn.
Freja is an excellent example of how we’ve already used Hero Ban data to make improvements. Her win rates were low after she was introduced, so we strengthened parts of her kit to make her more impactful; however, as players got better with that kit, her Hero Ban rate skyrocketed at the highest skill tiers. Above Diamond rank in Competitive mode, Freja is the most banned Hero in multiple regions!
Data is helpful to identify a specific issue, but after that we look at your feedback and delve into how a Hero feels within matches. For Freja, we asked ourselves what her pain points were and analyzed community input. The biggest concerns you shared were how oppressive she felt, especially when allowed to spam damage while airborne.
This led us to increase the cooldowns on her movement abilities—Quick Dash and Updraft—while also increasing her primary weapon reload time to avoid such constant spam damage. Freja is still a devastating damage dealer, but small tweaks make her less of a terror to play against. Both her win rate and ban rate have stabilized and we’re continuously monitoring all of the data to ensure that she lands in a balanced, fun state.
Despite the presence of compelling data, improvements aren’t so clear or immediate for some Heroes. Sombra’s ban rates are high in multiple regions on both PC and Console and we’re currently discussing future changes. She’s a complex case that can’t be solved overnight, but know the balance team has her in their sights.
Thinking Outside the Box
Data isn’t the only way we decide balance changes, though. Gameplay factors, like the enjoyment and ease of playing a Hero or their ability to keep up with the rest of the Overwatch 2 roster, influence our decisions. We also pull back and look at gameplay with a wider lens to make more overarching changes.
One big adjustment heading to Season 17 is increasing the damage role passive healing reduction from 25% to 30%, which should help damage dealers better contend with the amount of healing that support Heroes are churning out. The basic global health regeneration timer is also increasing from 5 to 6 seconds in an effort to make damage feel more impactful within matches.
Other times, we zoom in on Hero-specific changes that mean a lot to us. When I first joined the Hero Design team last year, one of my initial balance pitches was a little wild: I wanted to shrink Bastion.
Our favorite cheerful Omnic does a ton of damage, but the sheer size of his character model makes him difficult to play in many situations. Bastion struggles with survivability even though he has the largest health and armor pool of any damage Hero.
Though I was initially (and correctly) told it would be a difficult change to implement, other departments across the Overwatch 2 team joined the cause and we took a tinier Bastion into internal testing. We found that reducing his size by 15% simply made him too cute, so we kept tweaking the numbers.
Bastion’s size will be reduced by 10% when Season 17 launches to give him a survivability boost. While it’s not the most earth-shattering change to ever hit Overwatch, it’s a testament to the many different ways we can change and balance the game for every hero.
Other than a tinier (and possibly more ferocious) Bastion, you can expect lots of minor Hero balance changes when Season 17 hits on June 24. Junker Queen will see some important changes to her Commanding Shout that prioritize ally Overhealth, making her a more viable offensive tank choice. Perks like Pharah’s Helix Shields and Lifeweaver’s Cleansing Grasp will get some quality-of-life improvements as well.
Thanks for playing! Good luck and have fun.