Developer Blizzard Entertainment took to the official Overwatch 2 site to share the recap of the latest Reddit AMA. It was dedicated to Stadium, the latest permanent game mode introduced with Season 16.
In case you didn’t try it for yourself yet, Stadium is a new permanent game mode! In this best-of-7, round-based mode, you’ll earn Stadium Cash to unlock powerful, game-changing abilities. You can even choose between first-person and third-person perspective to see your powers in action, and unlock rewards as you rise through the ranks.
A group of developers from Blizzard have participated in a massive Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) dedicated to this game mode. This might just be the biggest Overwatch AMA ever, with folks from almost every part of the team. If you are interested in everything the team had to share, we urge you to check out the full version. Otherwise, proceed below for the short version.
- Why add the third-person mode? Overwatch always had third-person elements as part of its gameplay since it first launched. As so much of Stadium focused on expanding and pushing hero fantasy, having a third-person option on was the best method to give players that extra peripheral information to cover these new sources of visual noise.
- Is there any plan to introduce the stadium into custom games in the near future? The short answer is that developers absolutely want to get custom games for Stadium up and running.
- Stadium is a mix of new and old maps that fit the pace and mechanics. The developers found that it provides a great opportunity to take a fresh approach to locations from Overwatch’s history. Players shouldn’t be surprised to see more of them in the future.
- Certain heroes like Cassidy don’t have anything new, only options for better damage or cooldowns. One rough guideline the team does is to have a couple flashy / transformative powers per hero. However, they don’t always hit the mark won these. That means that during the iteration process, they’re removed due to gameplay issues, leaving certain heroes with less than others. No promises for now, but the team will be continuing to iterate on all heroes’ existing powers / items.
- For matchmaking in particular, the developers are always looking for ways to improve on the experience. Because Stadium is a brand-new mode, the matchmaker hasn’t had much of an opportunity to put players where they need to be yet. That being said, things will absolutely smooth out over time as people play more matches and settle into their ranks.
- Will it be a soft or hard reset for every season in Stadium? Currently, the devs plan to perform a soft reset of MMR at the start of each Stadium season.
- How will you prioritize which heroes will be added? The current plan is to add new heroes to stadium the mid season after they release. For existing heroes, there are many factors that determine which heroes enter the stadium. While hero popularity is one, gameplay is generally considered first. Kind of like how DVA was introduced into Overwatch at the same time Mei was. Its important to maintain healthy game balance when introducing new choices.
- Can we expect any “inspiration” to be taken from stadium items/powers and be used in future updates to perks in the main mode? Ben Trautman may have pitched a stadium power as a major perk for a particular hero, and a version of it may be coming in the future.
- How does the balancing process for Stadium look compared to the rest of the game? Stadium adds many more layers of complexity to Overwatch than the base game has. Economy, bounties, powers, items, a different ranked system, tons and tons of depth of play.
- Which heroes are most popular right now in Stadium? Damage: Soldier 76, Support: Juno, Tank: Reinhardt.
What’s the process for coming up with items and builds for a new hero like?
“Larry Wu: Thanks for the question! We usually start with a set of archetypes that hit on different fantasies or focus on a different part of the hero’s kit. Usually we want one ‘core fantasy +’ build that typically empowers the core gameplay loop of that hero, and then the other archetypes typically introduce new gameplay patterns or more transformative effects. After we have a set of archetypes, we usually want 2-3 core powers to support each of those archetypes, and then the rest are filled out with more flexible powers that are applicable to a number of archetypes.”
- Have there been any unique challenges or considerations that people might not expect? One thing people might not expect, is just how many different iterations Stadium went through on its journey to launch. When making something that you want to feel like a whole new experience, there really isn’t any better way than to try something new, play it yourself, see if it’s fun, and keep trying until it is.
- Since Stadium does not have swapping, how does the team think about design with adding heroes like Pharah or Ball? One of the core goals of Stadium’s design is that we empower you to replace counter swapping with counter building. An example of the kind of upgrade we’ve made for this is Genji’s Anti-Beam Coating, which you can buy in those Zarya/Mei/Moira games that ordinarily make you feel like you have to swap off.
- Will heroes who are already released ever get new unique items? The team will continue to iterate on existing heroes based on the developing meta and data.
