Overwatch 2 Mid-Season Patch Delayed to 'Resolve a Critical Issue' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 16 November 2022 / 2,232 Views
Blizzard has delayed the release of the mid-season patch for Overwatch 2 as the team needs to fix a "critical issue."
"Today’s patch is delayed as we work to resolve a critical issue. We’ll provide an update here and set the patch live as soon as the problem is addressed," reads the forum post from the Overwatch Community Manager.
"This includes the upcoming balance changes, bug fixes, including those that affect Mei, and core content updates we have planned for this patch. This delay also impacts the delivery of Overwatch League Viewership Incentives & Perks from the Postseason matches during the period between Oct 30 - Nov 4, along with the rotation of cosmetics in the Overwatch League shop."
An update to the forum post reveals the new plan is to now release the mid-season patch tomorrow, November 17 at 11:00 am PST / 2:00 pm EST.
Check out the patch notes for the update below:
Sombra
- Hack ability lockout duration reduced from 1.75 to 1.5 seconds
- Hacked enemies are no longer valid targets for hacking for the duration of the effect
- Hacked damage multiplier reduced from 40 to 25%
Dev Comment: With Sombra’s rework, she gained a lot more damage to help account for the reduced ability lockout duration of Hack. This has proven to be too deadly for a flanker with easy access to the enemy backlines, and we’ve similarly had to address the damage output of heroes like Tracer, Reaper, and now, Genji, in the 5v5 format.
She can also no longer channel hack on an already hacked target as feedback indicated the reduced cooldown combined with hacking from stealth proved to be too frustrating for many players. This is essentially a per-target cooldown that enables Hack to keep its current 4 second cooldown for potentially hacking multiple targets.
Genji
- Maximum ammo reduced from 30 to 24
- Shuriken damage reduced from 29 to 27
Dev Comment: Genji is a Hero that has greatly benefited from the move to 5v5. Changing to a single Tank and the reduction of crowd control has meant Genji has had less obstacles in his way, however he hasn’t received tuning updates since he wasn’t actively in the meta until launch (something also informed by our general preference to avoid preemptive adjustments when possible). We also saw that, in early beta tests, other flanking Heroes such as Tracer and Reaper were also significantly more effective in OW2. These changes will bring Genji more in line with the other flanking damage heroes.
Zarya
- Barrier duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 seconds
- Barrier cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds
Dev Comment: Early player sentiment predicted Zarya as one of the weakest solo tanks in 5v5 though her high damage potential and barrier uptime have proven to be extremely effective. For opponents, feedback has indicated this can feel as though Zarya has very limited windows of vulnerability, which feels difficult to deal with when combined with her ramping damage potential.
These changes will reduce the barrier uptime, making it slightly more difficult for her to gain energy and will provide enemies with more time to deal damage to her.
D.va
- Fusion Cannon spread increased from 3.5 to 3.75
- Boosters impact damage reduced from 25 to 15
Dev Comment: D.va ended up feeling too deadly after the last round of changes given how resilient she can be with the improved Defense Matrix. Both our stats and high-level player feedback regarded her as not effective enough before that compared with other tanks, so this is a partial revert to establish some middle ground there.
Kiriko
- Swift Step invulnerability duration reduced from 0.4 to 0.25 seconds
Dev Comment: This invulnerability window is primarily intended to help avoid instantly dying to something unseen after teleporting through walls, but it ended up being a little too long and led to some confusion when shooting at Kiriko
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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facepalm I swear it's like developers grow more and more incompetent.
This game has been such a joke xD
Hahahaha they failing left right and center from day one launch til now?
Is it still worth it to purchase Activision blizzard well the blizzard side of things is just crap after crap after crap haha
