The Overwatch 2 beta is in full swing for select PC players. In the future, Blizzard plans to release weekly updates on what they see in the beta. Their first weekly report details the four main topics they’re addressing this week.
Overwatch 2 Beta Goals
First up are highlights from what the team is seeing after the first part of the beta. Overall, Blizzard says players seem to be enjoying the new 5v5 structure. They note that players are having “more fun, feeling a greater sense of impact in their matches, and enjoying a faster pace of combat and engagements” in Overwatch 2.
Blizzard reminds players that their focus is on gameplay, balance, and stability. Because of this, several features are still a work in progress. Things like “menu screens, player profiles, multiple time of day conditions for classic maps, and the full set of hero 2.0 looks” are not being tested publicly yet.
Ranked Mode and Queue Times
The Overwatch 2 beta does not currently contain a ranked mode, much to the disappointment of many. Instead, Quick Play is the focus. This allows Blizzard to ensure players are put into matches more quickly versus being spread out in different queues. They’re also “planning some significant overhauls of our core ranked and competitive mode systems” that aren’t ready to be tested yet.
For tank and damage players, queue times have been longer. Those roles are currently more popular than support roles in the Overwatch 2 beta. Blizzard says they’re looking to enable Quick Play Classic. Quick Play Classic is Quick Play with no role limitations. If your team wants to play five support characters, go for it!
Game Balance and Support Heroes
So far in the Overwatch 2 beta, Blizzard sees “most heroes…falling into a healthy range overall for play rate and win rate across different skill levels,” but there are a few outliers. During the Alpha test, support heroes felt too vulnerable with the lack of a second tank. This sparked the inclusion of the support’s new passive regeneration ability.
Despite that change, Blizzard has seen that support players still feel like they have less new content to enjoy versus tank and damage characters. Their long-term goal is to add new support heroes to the roster. In the short term, though, Blizzard is experimenting with “new and refreshed abilities” for existing support heroes.
New Scoreboard
Blizzard has done away with the fire and Medal system in the original game. The Overwatch 2 beta’s scoreboard includes “current statistics about both team’s hero composition and the status of your teammates’ ultimates” to help coordinate and better support one another. Blizzard felt the Medal system offered too many interpretations of how well people were doing, so they nixed it.
The new Scoreboard will offer more stats visible to your teammates in a layout familiar to other games. “These statistics include eliminations, assists, deaths, damage, mitigation, and healing.”
If you’re looking for more Overwatch content, check out our ranking of all the maps in Overwatch. Be sure also to check out details on the newest hero introduced in the Overwatch 2 beta, Sojourn.
