Overwatch developers are looking to change things up with the first Experimental mode, which also features big change to the role queue and damage-dealing characters. This announcement was made by Blizzard last month. Starting tomorrow (2/25/2020), the Experimental mode will swap out the two tanks, two healers, and two damage role queue to one that features one tank, two healers, and three damage slots. Blizzard vice president and Overwatch boss Jeff Kaplan goes into detail about the mindset about this choice, called “triple damage” in the developer update video below.
Kaplan and the team wonder if this new model will cut down on the wait time that players have complained about in the past. The developers also said they believe that a large amount of the success for the game came from the inclusion of a role queue. This role queue, however, caused a larger wait time for players to enter the games.
“These are changes we’re unsure of,” Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan said in the video, “and that’s why we’re getting your feedback on them.”
The idea by these experimental modes is to test different gameplay ideas and see how the players respond to said changes. Depending on how things work, out, “triple damage” could become an official part of Overwatch, or it could be discarded as a failed experiment. These gameplay ideas and experiments are in fact a perfect fit for Blizzard’s new design mindset, which is to keep things fresh through regular game updates. Blizzard also states that they want “to implement more frequent and impactful balance updates with the intention to deliberately change the meta.” Another one of these changes is a rotating hero pool where certain heroes will be banned and unplayable on certain weeks.
Experimental mode goes live tomorrow and will remain live in the Arcade.