In a recent blog post, Blizzard has given voice to some of the planned changes for Overwatch 2, including a greater focus on event-based skins, improvement of queue times, and refined progression.
Jared Neuss, the new executive producer of Overwatch 2, took time to touch on what is coming ahead for this experience. He spoke about how the shift to free-to-play as a business model has changed the developer’s content priorities, resulting in new systems for unlocking skins and heroes.
- Read more: Overwatch 2 Characters (New and Returning)
Furthermore, Neuss explains how the team is dissatisfied with the current progression system, yet nothing they are content with the daily and weekly challenge events.
From Season 2 onwards, every event includes skins that players can earn on top of the existing cosmetic rewards. Over the course of the long term, including Season 3 and beyond, the team is going to be visiting a mix of changes to the battle pass to make the system more exciting.
Queue times were also addressed, stating that the shift to 5v5 led to longer wait times on behalf of tank and DPS players. A particular idea that the team has includes experimenting with the support role.
They want to make the support class of heroes more rewarding and potentially look at the way reworks, targeted support heroes, game system updates, and more role-wide changes to improve the general quality of life.
Although there are no bug fixes at the moment, estimations for queue times have been more accurate in the UI, with plans to experiment with XP rewards for the battle pass if you choose to queue as support.
In terms of the competitive side of things, Neuss understood that there are necessary improvements to be made. Several adjustments have come to matchmaking, though unspecified, and changes that are meant to aid the system in determining where players should sit in terms of division and skill.
The team is also taking into account feedback unexpected changes to rank, rate of feedback, and much more.