Overwatch to Get Hero Pools and More Aggressive Balancing

A new Overwatch Developer Update video has been released, in which the Game Director Jeff Kaplan shared the plans of the teams for the nearest future, including Hero Pools, Experimental Card, and new approach to balancing.

The main addition to the game will be Hero Pools, which will limit the number of available heroes for selecting. At first, the system will only work in ranked mode, with available heroes changing once a week. In future though, the frequency of hero rotation may change. The system will also be adopted in some way by Overwatch League.

The other pivotal change will be the new approach for balancing of heroes. Instead of introducing changes very carefully and rarely, the developers will now adjust balance in a more aggressive way, releasing frequent updates with more significant changes aiming at shaking the meta up. Jeff Kaplan also mentioned that they will not be afraid to revert some changes in few weeks in case of negative feedback.

To reinforce their new approach balancing, developers will add Experimental Card to the game. Contrary to the Public Test Realm, which requires you to download a separate client, Experimental Card will be available in the main game. The mode will showcase experimental changes to the game, which may be balance changes, adjustments of game modes, and more. Note that these changes may not be introduced to the main game at all. Experimental Card will also be available on consoles.

Among other promised changes are improvements to anti-cheat system and replays system, workshop update, and more. The video is available below.