overwatch Overwatch Blue Posts - 23/24 November, 2015

[Vlad 411]

Over the last 24 hours, Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan made a few posts on the US Overwatch Feedback Forums. His replies have shed some light on a few interesting aspects of the future of Overwatch.

The most interesting pieces of information are all located within a single reply to a thread commenting on a number of aspects. Here are the main ideas.

• Introducing a stopwatch for payload maps is "on their radar". This is an important move towards making competitive games possible, although what it being "on their radar" means is a bit vague. Still, it is a good sign.
• Ranked play mode is something they are "very excited about", but it is possible that it will only be implemented some time after the game launches. It is reassuring to know a ranked play mode is planned (since that is a core feature of any modern competitive game), but it is rather worrying that it is not a top priority to come in before launch. In fact, it may be difficult to keep players motivated for 5 months of Beta without any ranks to compete over.
• Basic crosshair customization and the possibility to disable in-game music are both coming.
• Hiding viewmodels is not planned (this refers to the ability to not display your character's weapon(s) on your screen).
• The development team has been discussing a kill feed for a long time, but they are not yet sure how to go about implementing it. The good news is that a kill feed is not off the table, but the bad news is that it might be an "unconventional" kill feed (since there can't be that much to discuss regarding a straightforward TF2/CS kill feed).

Jeff Kaplan

Stopwatch integration for payload maps
In order for this game to be balanced and played from the top-down, we will need to tools to play the game properly at the highest level. I'm sure this is on your radar.

Yes. On our radar.
 

Killfeed or Kill Notifications
Having to destroy my visibility in-game by pressing TAB to view dead players is not ideal. Nor is swinging my mouse around to count my teammate's skulls. The process of that information being fed to the player is not as seamless as it should be and it is rather distractive from the gameplay. When I press tab to view the enemy team's dead players, a grayed out portrait is not "at-a-glance" enough. Perhaps a skull over the portrait would suffice.

This came up internally in our alpha and we’ve been discussing it since then. We’ll have a solution. We just haven’t entirely agreed on that solution internally yet.
 

Rank or Displayed MMR
In CS:GO you have 18 ranks which can each be sought one after the next as a player looking to improve. Progression, continuity and goal driven gameplay are important in RPGs and it keeps the player coming back for more. This is something FPS's have traditionally lacked. Something as simple as a ladder(a la SC2?), ranks or win-loss will benefit player retention greatly.

We’re very excited about a ranked play mode. If this feature does not make launch, it will be one that we focus on post-launch.
 

Crosshair customization.

We’re open to this. We’ll probably give some basic options.
 

Hide viewmodel option.

Not planned.
 

Healthbar placement, opacity or hue. I find this is difficult to pick up in peripheral while in the most hectic moments.

We haven’t received too many complaints about this but we’ll keep an eye on it and make adjustments as needed.
 

The music is wonderful, no doubt. But for those of us who have played hundreds or thousands of games, we'd love to have an option to opt out.

This is planned. I think it’s scheduled to go live early next year.

Thanks for all the feedback!
(source)

Two other blue posts provide interesting tidbits.

Solider: 76's muzzle flash animation will be toned down in the future. This implies that there may also be hope for other distracting/obstructive graphical effects. Here's hoping the sun on Watchpoint: Gibraltar will take a break.

The other feature that is coming is the ability to hear Overwatch's sounds when it is not in the foreground. That will allow you to switch to a different application while waiting for a match to be found for you without the risk of not switching back in time.

Jeff Kaplan

Toning down Soldier: 76's muzzle flash is on our list of things to do.
(source)

Jeff Kaplan

HeyGuys,

I've been having tons of fun lately playing Overwatch but there's one thing missing that isn't super important but would be a nice QoL change: make it so we can hear OW sound while in background. I play in borderless windowed mode and when I click ''play'' I just tab out and start browsing forums, and have to be checking every ten seconds if I've been matched yet: this could be easily solved with a checkbox in the sound options that reads ''sound while in background'' as it exists in WoW for example.

Thank you.

This is planned.
(source)