Overwatch PTR online with big hero balance changes

We don’t typically have the time to try multiple configurations to our hero balance composition, but the extended length of this PTR gives us a unique opportunity. Throughout the PTR, we’ll be continuously adjusting our heroes’ stats, which will provide valuable data needed to make some tough decisions.

None of these changes should be considered final, and we’ll continue to update this post as the PTR progresses. Please feel free to provide feedback throughout this test. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think.

Hero Balance Changes

General

• Dealing damage to non-players (like like Torbjorn’s turrets or Symmetra’s teleporter), no longer charges ultimate abilities
• Ultimate costs have been increased by 25% for all heroes

D. Va

• Mech health increased to 200 (formerly 100). Armor remains at 400
• Movement speed while firing has been increased by 25%

Soldier: 76

• Pulse Rifle
  • Bullet damage increased from 17 to 20
  • Maximum bullet spread Increased from 2.2 to 2.4

Ana

• Nano Boost
  • No longer increases move speed

Mei

• Blizzard
  • Ultimate cost has been increased by 15%

Lúcio

• Amp It Up
  • Healing-per-second has been decreased by 10%

Zarya

• Particle Barrier
  • Power gained from barriers decreased by 20%

• Projected Barrier
  • Power gained from barriers decreased by 20%

Torbjörn

• Scrap is now automatically generated over time
• The amount of scrap collected from a fallen enemy has been decreased by 40%
• Forge Hammer
  • Swing speed increased by 25%
  • Damage decreased by 27%

SPECIAL REQUEST FROM BLIZZARD

In addition to the balance changes and bug fixes listed below, a big focus of this PTR will be to thoroughly test a variety of data-optimization improvements we’ve been working on behind-the-scenes. The nature of these improvements means that the size of this particular patch will be much larger than normal, but the upside is that the underlying changes will help us more efficiently introduce new content as well decrease the downtime players experience when loading maps.

On that note, if you’ve experienced lengthy load times in the past, we’d love it if you could spend a little time on the PTR and then share your experiences on the official forums. If your load times decrease, awesome—let us know! And if your load times increase, we’d like to hear about that too.

We’re looking forward to your feedback, and thank you for helping us improve Overwatch

GENERAL UPDATES

General

• Made several adjustments to the amount of experience needed to level
  • The amount of experience needed to reach each level between 1 and 13 remains unchanged
  • The amount of experience needed to reach each level between 14 and 100 has been slightly reduced
  • The amount of experience needed to reach each level after 100 is now constant (20k EXP) and will no longer reset with each promotion

Developer Comments: With the way our experience curve works right now, players can move quickly through the first 23 levels of each promotional tier (1-23, 101-123, 201-223, etc). This is because when a player is promoted every 100 levels, the experience curve essentially resets. While this reset has worked pretty well so far, it’s also encouraged some people to stop playing the game altogether once they’re promoted—the goal of this being to save those first 23 levels specifically for seasonal events. To help address this, the experience needed for all post-promotion levels (i.e. any level after 100) is now a consistent 20k and will no longer reset. The total experience required to gain 100 levels after a promotion is roughly unchanged, however. In addition, the total experience required to earn your first 100 levels (before your first promotion) has been slightly reduced.

HERO BALANCE CHANGES

We’re making a number of significant hero adjustments this patch and will also be experimenting with different balance tweaks throughout the duration of the PTR.

If you’d like an up-to-date rundown of these changes as they’re implemented, click here. We’re going to be iterating on hero balance quite frequently over the next few weeks, and we’ll be sure to share the latest information as the PTR progresses.

BUG FIXES

General

• Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented the PC Client from closing properly, subsequently making the Battle.net application think the game was still running
• Fixed a bug preventing players from receiving credit toward the Most Healing Done commendation
• Fixed a bug preventing the fourth column on the friends list from being displayed properly

AI

• Fixed a bug that caused the McCree bot to Combat Roll into the well on Ilios

Competitive Play

• Fixed a bug that could cause overtime to continue indefinitely on Assault maps
• Fixed a bug that could cause matches to begin with only 11 connected players

Heroes

• Fixed a bug that prevented Ana’s healing stats from showing up in the Career Profile page
• Fixed a bug causing irregular placement of the pumpkin on Genji’s “Pumpkin Carving” Highlight intro when certain skins were equipped
• Fixed a bug preventing Mercy’s staff from showing up in the “Guardian Angel” highlight intro when her Cobalt skin was equipped
• Fixed a bug preventing Reaper’s “R.I.P.” victory pose from animating correctly when the game client isn’t in focus
• Fixed a bug preventing some of Tracer’s voice lines from activating when her Punk skin is equipped

Maps

• Fixed a bug on Watchpoint: Gibraltar that allowed players to reach an unintended perch near the final objective