My hopes on Overwatch 2 - Engine changes
More of a wish list of what I'm hoping will happen in Overwatch 2. Sure, we all know PvE is the biggest feature. It's going to expand the lore and story of all the heroes we know and love. While that's nice what i'm really looking forward to are some fundamental changes to the backend of Overwatch. I'm heavily basing what I'm looking for based on that we know OW2 does not use a new game engine, but a heavily upgraded on.
First and foremost, new workshop features.
With the upgraded engine comes new code but this time Blizzard understands that the workshop exists. Any system that is being changed should be created with options to modify it through the workshop. This means that the new system they talk about that handles eyes,skin, and other features could have been created with options in-mind for the workshop. Currently in the workshop you're unable to use assets such as models nor can you change these assets at all. Outside of models and other visual aspects, you're also unable to modify simple things in the workshop, like ammo count and clip size. Most of these features can be re-created through custom player functions but it does add a bit of an annoyance in game. In the long run custom games are what makes a game thrive, it could be the most important part of Overwatch.
Better hit-detection, removal of favoring the shooter, rebalance hitboxes and hitscan/projectiles
In short, better netcode. Since I don't have any of the details to the engine I'm going to assume they'll have to take a look at the netcode Overwatch uses. I believe a large part of why projectiles and heroes are gigantic is because of how poor the netcode in overwatch is. This was demonstrated in an early patch in 2016 where all projectiles were reduced in size by 33% and quickly reverted. Mei's icicles were physically stuck in a player's model but wouldn't register as a hit. The developer comment (Quoted below) states that they couldn't go through with the change because of too many side effects, in the game's current form. This would lead to the balancing of projectiles and heroes in general. If hitboxes properly reflected the model then headshots would be more difficult and provide some much needed balance at the highest levels of the game. This would be the biggest change that could ever happen in Overwatch but is necessary. Players would have to relearn a lot and the game would feel much different.
"Developer Comments: Altering the size of projectiles in flight had too many unintended side effects to keep in the game, at least in its current form."
OW2 comes with a new look and a minimalistic UI. While this is a great change I was hoping that more customization will be enabled. Allowing players to move their health bars, ammo count and change their size/shape. I'm also dying for a no view model option for your weapon, junkrat specifically blocks his entire view whenever you're sending out artillery shots high into the air. I've since lost the graph of how much each gun blocks your view but i do remember Zarya was at the top at 33%. That means a third of the screen is unviewable for her.
"Developer Comments: Altering the size of projectiles in flight had too many unintended side effects to keep in the game, at least in its current form."
Customizable UI
OW2 comes with a new look and a minimalistic UI. While this is a great change I was hoping that more customization will be enabled. Allowing players to move their health bars, ammo count and change their size/shape. I'm also dying for a no view model option for your weapon, junkrat specifically blocks his entire view whenever you're sending out artillery shots high into the air. I've since lost the graph of how much each gun blocks your view but i do remember Zarya was at the top at 33%. That means a third of the screen is unviewable for her.
Streamlined balance changes
It's pretty clear that Blizzard didn't think about being able to change OW quickly. It took them a great deal of time to get the experimental card going on live and Jeff Kaplan thanked one of his networking guys for getting it going. The only thing i can assume from that is there were networking difficulties between the PTR and live servers, so from the core of their infrastructure they were not thinking of how to make changes going forward. The question is can Blizzard align more fundamental technologies with how they approach change. If more of the game can be changed and made accessible we should get more changes, in theory.
Visual clean up
Part about making a game easy to learn and play is to have mechanics that are not hidden in the background. Most everything in Overwatch has an accurate visual references. This allows everyone to see what an ability is doing and why/how they were effected/hit by it. At first this is great until you have 12 heroes creating visual clutter at once. Blizzard has made some changes to the visual effect of shields and large abilities like Moira's ultimate but more still need to be made. It's to the point that I believe the only way to properly clean this up is with changes to the engine, which luckily enough is what we're getting.
New map mechanics/larger maps
How much processing the map alone takes is often overlooked, especially maps where there are multiple moving parts or complex mechanics. With a better engine we should start to see more uses of simple mechanics or completely new mechanics. The ironic part is that we currently do have large maps but they are simple and therefore promote snipers too heavily. A reason for this could be that having a large map with complex buildings has too much load on the engine.