'Overwatch': D.Va, Mcree And Reaper Among Heroes Getting Balance Changes Soon

The first balance patch for Overwatch has yet to be released by Blizzard. But that doesn’t mean we’re completely in the dark, regarding the contents of the game’s first update, thanks to a handful of updates from various members of the Overwatch dev team.

Blizzard’s first shooter has only been on store shelves for about a week now, following its May 24 debut, but that hasn’t stopped members of the game’s community from claiming damn near every hero on the Overwatch roster is overpowered. Naturally, the team behind the new shooter has been keeping a close eye on the first week of competition, trying to figure out which aspects of the Overwatch experience need the team’s attention first. Fortunately, we’ve already got some idea of what to expect when Blizzard starts rolling out balance fixes later this month.

According to a pair of new posts on the Overwatch forums, from principal designer Geoff Goodman and game director Jeff Kaplan , D.Va, McCree and Reaper will be among the first heroes to be tweaked when the Overwatch patches begin to arrive. Goodman says Blizzard will be looking to make McCree’s Flashbang/Fan combo is a bit less effective against tanks while D.Va will get a few unidentified improvement s to make her useful for more than just mech detonations. Reaper will also get a small tweak in the next patch to make it easier to tell whether a friendly or hostile player is currently teleporting near you.

Elsewhere, GameSpot managed to get a few answers from Overwatch ’s lead software engineer, Rowan Hamilton. According to Hamilton, Blizzard plans to continue adjusting the algorithm that determines who gets Play of the Game at the end of each match; however, improving the existing formula will take quite a bit of work. Figuring out a way to make the server value support play, like a well-timed shield from Lucio, as much as killstreaks and other eliminations is proving to be more difficult than the team expected. Mostly, Hamilton says, because computers are “ not very smart. ”

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