Overbuff Recall – February 11, 2022 – Overbuff

Experimental Card

Hitting the live servers this week was a new Experimental Card with changes proposed by content creators from around Overwatch. Both jake and w_nted worked on the damage role, LemonKiwi on tanks, and mL7 on support heroes.

The changes to all heroes are extensive and I won’t list them all but you can read them in-game and on the Overwatch website’s Patch Note page.

Before the changes were rolled out, LemonKiwi made a video describing her process that went into working on the changes and her intended goal on tank changes, admitting that the creators did not get a chance to playtest their suggestions before the changes went live.

Takedown

Three and a half hours after the Experimental Card hit the live servers, it was taken offline to work on fixes for known issues it had caused. No timeline was given as to when the card will return, but I suspect later today, Friday, if it isn’t already up by the time this post publishes. It may also see changes because tanks were reporting they felt like they couldn’t do much to help their team with their damage reduced so much.

Experimental Cup Tournament

Next weekend, February 19 and 20, Activision Blizzard is hosting the Experimental C up with the North America region playing for a $25,000 prize pool, EU a pool of $12,000, and both Asia Pacific and Korea regions a $7,000 pool each.

Monkey Bubble is producing the NA and EU matches which will broadcast on the Overwatch League YouTube and Overwatch Twitch channels.

Sign-ups and have begun and are open until midday on Thursday, February 17.

Find the schedule and sign-up link on the Cup’s website.

• Released this week is the 4th issue of 5 of the “New Blood” Cassidy comic, this time with Cole recruiting Zarya into Overwatch. (Comic on PlayOverwatch)
• The Wall Street Journal put out a long-form article this week interviewing women who did or still do work for Activision Blizzard, reporting their story of things they saw or had to put up with. The first incident reported talks about how a woman, who had turned 21 her starting day, and had never done shots before, found a row of Fireball Whisky waiting for her in front of her keyboard on her first day. Others told the WSJ about a spreadsheet used to grade new hires on their looks and availability. (The Wall Street Journal | paywall)
• Activision Blizzard confirmed a story reported last week by Kevin Hitt that the Overwatch League took bids for a third-party to produce and facilitate the league. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing for the league, and instead represents the direction esports is heading. Recently an investment fund paid $1.5 billion for ESL/Faceit. (https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/SB-Blogs/Newsletter-Esports/2022/02/02.aspx)
• Stats Producer Matt Mersel reported it was his last week with Blizzard, and longtime Character Art Director Arnold Tsang had his last day last week.