Overwatch 2

Overwatch 2 beta testing goals: Uniting development with community

The upcoming Overwatch 2 Beta is among us, and the team is incredibly excited to welcome players on Xbox and PlayStation and bring Junker Queen, Rio, and multiple balance changes to our players.

news.blizzard.com

Game design and balance goals​

Between betas, we’ve made several changes that will have an impact on upcoming gameplay. For example, the Damage Passive speed boost has been removed and replaced with a new passive that allows Damage heroes to maintain up to 30% of their Ultimate charge when swapping to other Damage heroes. We’re looking closely at how people are playing across all roles, and we’re still paying particular attention to Support performance to address player feedback prior to launch.

The team is currently ideating, designing, and testing some new abilities we can give existing Support heroes, beginning with significant Moira changes coming in the balance patch during this beta.
Push has also been the subject of some changes over the past few weeks; after reviewing player feedback, we’ve decided to add two minutes to the timebank. This will extend the game from eight minutes to ten, giving both teams a little more time to push TS-1 to the end.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard many player requests for a competitive experience in the Beta. While we continue to focus our work on deploying a redesigned competitive experience for launch, we’ve decided to enable a partial competitive ruleset that will allow teams to play out the full maps while still having backfills if a player disconnects.

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Overwatch 2 Beta Patch Notes – June 28th, 2022​

ANNOUNCEMENT​

Console and Cross-Play Testing​

The Overwatch 2 Beta will be cross platform and available to players on Windows® PC and Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation®5, and PlayStation®4 consoles.

Our primary goal for the Overwatch 2 Beta is to test our console and cross-play capabilities. Players from different platforms can play with and against each other. This gives the team the opportunity to stress-test our game and see what players from different platforms think about Overwatch 2!

Temporary Change to Quick Play​

With Competitive Play currently unavailable in the OW2 beta, we’ve made a temporary modification to our Quick Play queue, providing both Role Queue and Open Queue as options. Quick Play games will also use competitive rulesets for each map’s game mode. For Hybrid and Payload maps, both teams play Offense AND Defense in the same manner as competitive play, with the winner determined by which team performs better on offense. All other features of Quick Play are unchanged. This includes elements such as matchmaking, handling of leaves, and allowing players to backfill into games in progress.

NEW HERO​

Junker Queen

Primary Fire: Scattergun

• Pump Action Shotgun

Secondary Fire: Jagged Blade

• Active: Throw the blade. Re-activate to pull it back, along with any impaled enemy
• Passive: Wound enemies hit by Quick Melee or Throw, dealing damage over time

Ability: Commanding Shout

• Temporarily increase health and movement speed for herself and nearby allies

Ability: Carnage

• Would all enemies in front of you, dealing damage over time

Passive: Adrenaline Rush

• Heal from all damage over time dealt by wounds

Ultimate: Rampage

• Charge forward and wound enemies; dealing damage over time and preventing them from being healed

GENERAL UPDATES​

New Hero Looks​

All heroes have new Overwatch 2 exclusive looks. Select “Classic II” from the Skin select screen in the Hero Gallery to check them out.

Dynamic Rendering Scale​

Added “Dynamic Render Scale” to PC to improve performance when GPU limited.

• If Dynamic Render Scale is enabled, “Render Scale” can be set to “Custom” and supersedes the previous “Limit FPS” option, allowing for the ability to specify a minimum and maximum resolution scale:
• Minimum resolution can be lowered to improve performance
• Maximum resolution can be increased to improve visual fidelity

Push Maps​

• Total game time extended from 8 minutes to 10 minutes

PING SYSTEM​

New Hero Pings

• Symmetra can now ping her teleporters for her allies
• Ana now has unique ping VO and visuals when pinging sleeping enemies
• Junkrat can now ping the location of enemies in his traps through walls
  • This places a unique type of unmoving Last Seen ping

Ping Visual Updates

• Ping icon visuals updated but are still a work in progress - pending final art
• Low and Critical health indicators added to enemy ping icons
• These indicators appear when you can see an enemy’s health and subsequently ping them. The following abilities/events can cause you to see an enemy’s health:
  • Sombra’s Opportunist
  • Sombra’s Hack
  • Mercy’s Valkyrie
  • Widowmaker’s Infra-Sight
• Confirm and Cancel visuals added
  • Canceling a ping removes it from the world
  • Confirming a ping informs your allies that you see their communication with contextual responses
• Last Seen pings now have unique visuals
  • Last Seen pings are unmoving pings and are only placed when you lose line of sight of an enemy that was previously pinged
• Offscreen pings now animate to draw attention

Ping Wheel Updates

• Opening the ping wheel now also automatically fires a contextual ping
  • This will help with pinging enemies when you accidentally open the wheel
• The ping wheel now remembers the location your crosshair was aimed at when the wheel opened (instead of when you make a selection on the wheel).
• World pings will now be placed at that location
• The ping wheel now has a bespoke dead zone, smaller than all other wheels (Comms, Emote, Voice Line, Response)
• The ping wheel now has a back button
  • All wheels have the back functionality for controller

Pinging While Dead

• For the first 3 seconds of a hero’s death, the dead hero can ping the enemy that killed them
  • This prevents spamming the ping on enemies to keep their position updated since your body doesn’t provide line of sight
  • You’ll only be able to place Last Seen pings if none of your allies also see them
  • Many pings are not intended to work while dead, instead printing your remaining respawn time in the team chat
  • Aiming at the enemy is not required since players are unable to aim in this 3-second window
  • There is more stringent spam protection on these pings than on regular enemy pings

SCOREBOARD​

The game scoreboard has been updated in multiple ways based on all the amazing feedback we’ve received since the first beta.

• Completely reorganized layout, bringing the most important information together for an easier viewing experience
• Improved ultimate progress indicators that now show numeric values
• Increased transparency to allow you to see more of the game action while viewing the scoreboard

We look forward to more of your feedback on this feature, as we’re still looking to update and polish the scoreboard.

Scoreboard Statistics Update

A large reorganization is in progress for the statistics displayed on the scoreboard, as well as the statistics for each hero. The scoreboard now displays Eliminations, Assists, Deaths, Hero Damage dealt, Healing Done, and Damage Mitigated. Here are the new statistics:

• Assists is a new statistic that increments whenever a player earns what we previously referred to as a Defensive Assist or an Offensive Assist
• Damage Mitigated is a new statistic that encompasses the previous Damage Blocked statistic, but also keeps track of damage prevented by effects such as Ana’s Nano Boost or Orisa’s Fortify
  • There’s still work to be done here, as we plan on adding tracking for damage mitigated by effects such as Lucio’s Sound Barrier

Many heroes still have statistics that are not yet implemented. These are marked by the NYI tag after the name of the statistic. We have included these unfinished statistics in the scoreboard to provide opportunities for players to give feedback on this feature.

SOUND​

Home Theater Surround Sound Updates​

• All ambience soundscapes are now mixed for surround sound

3D Audio Updates​

• Xbox – Overwatch now supports Dolby Atmos for home theater and 3d audio over headphones
• PS5 – Overwatch now supports Sony 3d audio through headphones and TV

MAPS​

Control​

Ilios

• Evening Lighting

Lijiang Tower

• Dawn Lighting

Oasis

• Night Lighting

Nepal

• Morning Lighting

Busan

• (NEW) Night Lighting

Escort​

Circuit Royal

• Night Lighting

Dorado

• Evening Lighting

Route 66

• Night Lighting

Gibraltar

• (NEW) Morning Lighting

Junkertown

• Morning Lighting

Hybrid​

Midtown

• Morning Lighting

King’s Row

• Evening Lighting

Eichenwalde

• Evening Lighting

Hollywood

• Morning Lighting

(NEW) Paraíso

• In the heart of Rio lies our new Hybrid map, Paraíso! Take a bumping carnival float through the city streets, making your way from the sunny beach to Lúcio’s own Clube Sinestesia.

Push​

New Queen Street

• Morning Lighting

Colosseo

• Evening Lighting

Deathmatch​

• Kanezaka
• Malevento

HEROES​

General​

Support Role Passive

• Time to activate healing increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds

Damage Role Passive

• Swapping to other damage heroes maintains up to 30% of your new hero’s ultimate charge
• Previous movement speed passive has been removed
  • Heroes that previously had their movement speed adjusted due to the role passive have been returned to their original values

Tank​

Reinhardt

• Armor reduced from 350 to 300
• Health increased from 300 to 325

Winston
Primal Rage (Ultimate)

• Ultimate cost increased 10%

Barrier Projector

• Projector health reduced from 800 to 700

D.Va

• Mech Armor increased from 200 to 300
• Mech Health decreased from 450 to 350

Doomfist

Seismic Slam

• No longer slows enemies

Power Block

• Damage reduction reduced from 90% to 80%

Orisa
Augmented Fusion Driver

• Damage increased from 10 to 12
• Projectile size no longer scales with distance
• Projectile initial size reduced from 0.3 to 0.1
• Critical damage bonus increased from 50% to 100%
• Damage falloff at maximum range reduced from 70% to 50%
• Maximum falloff range reduced from 15-35 meters to 15-25 meters

Fortify

• 20% movement speed penalty removed
• Headshot immunity removed

Javelin Spin

• Cooldown decreased from 10 to 7 seconds
• Speed boost reduced from 65% to 40%
• Knockback increased

Energy Javelin

• Impact damage reduced from 80 to 60
• Cooldown increased from 6.5 to 8 seconds

Terra Surge

• Max damage increased from 275 to 500
• Damage begins to ramp after the old 200 damage timing

Damage​

Bastion
Tactical Grenade

• Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds

Cassidy
Combat Roll

• Now grants 50% damage reduction for its 0.4 second duration

Junkrat
Steel Trap

• Fully locks movement again
• Projectile speed increased from 10 to 15

Frag Launcher

• Projectile size increased from 0.2 to 0.25

Pharah
Rocket Launcher

• Reload starts 0.25 seconds sooner when out of ammo

Concussive Blast

• Now deals 30 damage and deals additional knockback on direct hits

Symmetra
Photon Projector (Primary Fire)

• Maximum ammo increased from 70 to 100
• No longer generates ammo when damaging barriers

Photon Projector (Secondary Fire)

• Projectile speed increased from 25 to 50
• Max damage reduced from 120 to 90 (45 impact, 45 explosion)
• Max charge projectile size reduced from 0.5 to 0.4
• Ammo cost increased from 7 to 10
• Charge time increased from 1 to 1.2 seconds

Teleporter

• Build time reduced from 2 to 1 second
• Now has a maximum lifetime of 10 seconds
• Cooldown increased from 10 to 16 seconds
• Cooldown starts when Teleporter is placed
• Health reduced from 300 to 200 (50 health, 150 shields)

Sentry Turrets

• Travel speed increased from 15 to 20
• Movement speed reduction on targets reduced from 20% per turret to 15% per turret

Torbjörn
Rivet Gun (Primary Fire)

• Fire recovery reduced from 0.6 to 0.55 seconds

Rivet Gun (Secondary Fire)

• Fire recovery reduced from 0.8 to 0.7 seconds

Support​

Zenyatta
Orb of Discord

• Time to fall off target when not in line of sight reduced from 3 to 2 seconds

Mercy
Guardian Angel

• No longer can be canceled using crouch for a big vertical boost
• Now automatically launches a player upward if they reach the end of their GA

Passive: Angelic Descent

• Angelic Descent will now additionally slow ascent speed if held, not just descent speed
• This means you can dampen vertical knockbacks (such as Junkrat’s Concussive Mine) but also reduce the amount of height that the GA vert boost gives you

BUGS FIXES​

Thanks to your help, we were able to fix over 400 bugs from Beta 1 to beta 2! Here are some of the highlights:

General​

• Fixed a bug where avoiding teammates would not work
• Fixed a bug where the crosshair preview was missing from the options menu
• Fixed a bug where some hero settings were blank
• Fixed a bug where some pings would display the Punch Kid icon
• Fixed a bug where skipping killcam would result in enemy player footsteps being substantially quieter after you respawned
• Fixed several bugs relating to emotes, victory poses, and skins
• Fixed several bugs relating to UI, Chat, Game browser, and Custom Games

Heroes​

• Fixed a bug where using some ultimates could lock the camera below the map

Doomfist

• Fixed a bug where Doomfist’s Power Block could reduce damage done by Bastion’s Sticky Grenade and Echo’s Sticky Bombs
• Fixed a bug where hitting targets with a minimally charged Rocket Punch into the wall would deal no impact damage

Genji

• Fixed a bug where Swift Strike would not reset after kill and would go on cooldown again
• Fixed a bug where Genji was not taking the proper amount of damage when using Swift Strike while a sticky bomb explodes

Orisa

• Fixed a bug where Orisa’s Javelin Spin could not be canceled by being hacked

Roadhog

• Fixed a bug where Roadhog could still pull enemies with Chain Hook after getting stunned, hacked, or slept

Sombra

• Fixed a bug where high frequency sounds would get cut off when in Stealth mode as Sombra

Zarya

• Fixed a bug where Zarya could apply a Projection Barrier to an ally that was dying, consuming a charge

Zenyatta

• Fixed a bug where reapplying the Orb of Discord on an enemy would show the ability icon as blue

KNOWN ISSUES​

• Sprays are not appearing on some objects
• Several Issues/Bugs with Golden Weapons
• Controller Rumble is not present for all of Junker Queen’s abilities
• Sombra’s “undetected” highlight will sometimes not play during Play of the Game
• Some Zenyatta skins are missing coloring
• Players can clip through or jitter when changing directions while Ice Wall spawns
• Multiple heroes may have outdated hero tips
• Baptiste’s Exo Boost may occasionally hitch
• Some assets may not load during play of the game or kill cam

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Amycus said:

I’m enjoying it so far.

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