Overwatchis an incredibly popular game because of its fun team-based shooting mechanics and its diverse character roster. As a result ofOverwatch’s expansive hero rosterplayers often invest in a particular individual and their abilities. While on the surface this is a positive for developers, it can raise issues. A recent update to Moira raised the negative elements of changing up a character that many enjoy and because of the ferocity of the backlash, the update will not go live.
Theupdate to Moiramade the hero very powerful and this was the primary criticism ofOverwatchplayers. The buff to the character was part ofOverwatch’s experimental mode which allows the developer to test out new ideas before implementing them into the final game. Despite not being put in the game, many fans were outraged by what they were seeing in the mode and as a result, the developer has responded to the heavy criticism it has received.
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The experimental card for Moira undoubtedly buffed their abilities significantly with their Damage Orb dealing a 150 damage per second. Furthermore, the Fade ability would heal al nearby teammates of status effects and make them immune to damage for up to 1 second. This resulted in players complaining that the character was too powerful and upsetting the balance of the game.Overwatchhas responded by pulling the buffs from the experimental mode and the team has also offered some reasoning behind the decision.
The Community Manager at Blizzard, Molly Fender, discussed why Moira had been edited in the first place, “Sometimes during development, it’s more helpful to test abilities at extremes and fine-tune with balancing after. It’s likely that if we wanted to pursue the Fade ability change further we would adjust the ability’s cooldown.” Fender went on to state that the changes will not be implemented in the game “We’re not currently planning to move forward with the Moira changes being tested. The team has already been working on a few other tests aimed toward our goals; we have more we’d like to try… with her abilities.”
This statement will please players who were concerned about how the game would play with the changes to Moira. However, other fans may be worried about further experiments with the character and it will be interesting to see how they react to the new features that will be eventually included inOverwatch’s experimental mode.
WithOverwatch 2on the horizon, Blizzard is undoubtedly focusing on the next edition in the series. However, it seems that lessons can still be learned from the original game, particularly in how characters are changed. Moving forward, Blizzard may reconsider how much of its development it lets players see to avoid the significant backlash it recently received.
Overwatchis available on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and the Nintendo Switch.
