Jeff Kaplan and Michael Heiberg discuss the popularity of different ice cream flavors.
“I've always believed everyone loves chocolate,” says Overwatch Director Jeff Kaplan.
Heiberg, the game's lead designer, shakes his head. "Statistics show that white vanilla is more popular."
“Okay, so vanilla is the most popular flavor statistically,” agrees Kaplan. "People lean towards certain ice cream flavors as much as they do certain roles in Overwatch."
They are trying to explain how they came to the decision to test the 3-2-1 roster (one tank, three DPS, two medics) in the new Laboratory mode. This is a major change, and the team is not sure of its success, but this is the beauty of the "Laboratory": it allows players on all platforms to try out the most daring ideas of the developers without leaving the main client of the game.
Kaplan and Khyberg talked in detail about the appearance of the "Laboratory", as well as how the mode "3-2-1" will affect the game.
How did you come up with the idea to create the "Laboratory"?
Kaplan: When we make balance changes, they go to the PTR (test game world). While testing on the PTR is underway, we are simultaneously undergoing certification for consoles from Sony, Microsoft, and more recently from Nintendo. On average, certification takes a week - and does not include testing or deploying an application, so the process can be lengthy. It takes a lot more time to change McCree's weapon damage by one than many players think.
Then, from a balance point of view, we need some time to look at the effect of these changes before moving on to the next step. As a result, we started making balance changes every two months.
Ask any Overwatch designer, "Which ten features are you missing the most?" Among them will certainly be "the ability to instantly make changes and respond faster when you need to change the balance."
When did it become possible to create such a function?
Kaplan: Two engineers on our team were particularly active in promoting the idea of the "Laboratory". One of them is Derek Mulder, a highly experienced gameplay engineer; the other is Phil Oruig, our brilliant network engineer. Derek had this idea: what if you create an accessible version of the PTR right in the game.
This idea captivated us, because this way the players would not need to download a separate client, and besides, they would be able to receive all the rewards as usual - account levels, containers. And console players could take part too.
This solution turned out to be the easiest for us . In general, this does not happen - for someone to have an idea, and everyone said: "Yes, we definitely have to do this!" But that is exactly how it turned out with the "Laboratory".
Your first experimental mode is 3-2-1, in which teams will have one tank, two DPS, and two medics. How did this idea come about?
Heiberg: When we released the 2-2-2 role limit, there were a lot more DPS in queues than tanks and medics. As a result, the waiting time increased, and then we thought: what if we change the composition of the team so that it more closely matches the ratio of preferred heroes among all players? If this idea works, players will wait less and play more. So we decided to give it a try.
How did the internal tests go? Have you made any interesting observations?
Heiberg: When there are more DPS than tanks on the team, the lethality of the game changes. Tank players and players trying to defend them experience a very different level of stress.
Kaplan: With three DPS, there are lineups that we couldn't even imagine in the current game. Earlier we saw teams with two flankers like Genji and Tracer, supported by aggressive tanks. There were squads with two snipers - Widow and Hanzo - and a more defensive style of play. And now you can have two snipers and also a flanker - it is played in a completely different way. More chaos, more dynamics.
Opinions among the development team were overwhelmingly divided. Someone did not like it extremely, someone was intrigued. Most expressed cautious optimism, saying something like: "Yes, indeed, it can turn out interesting." But ardent opponents of this squad argued: "Everything has changed a lot, the tanks are under too much stress, the game is too lethal."
We will experiment and see if we can balance these difficulties. For example, lethality: of course, the number of tanks also affects it, but you can deal with the damage and health of other heroes, change something in these indicators.
Can you tell us about the specific changes you've been thinking about?
Kaplan: The most important question was: what will become of Turbosvin, D.Va and Zarya?
When we first created tanks, we did not have an "offtank" concept. What's more, we expected players to only use one tank - and that's how we played Overwatch in the beginning. If you played Quick Play before the role limitation was introduced, you know that the tank was a luxury there.
But with the introduction of 2-2-2,
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