Overwatch just released a 10 minute long developer update in which Jeff Kaplan talks about a large variety of changes that will be coming to Overwatch. This patch will see a full rework for Symmetra, new ways to find groups to play with, changes to the Horizon Lunar Colony map and some smaller tweaks to champions.
Symmetra has been in need for a complete rework for a while now. While she wasn’t necessarily a bad hero, she was way too situational. She would only see play while defending the first point on some maps or she would be used for some silly cheese strategies. If she did well she was perfectly viable but if she would die early than she would often be swapped for a different hero right away. Her new kit gives her much more play making abilities. Changing her teleporter enables Blizzard to shift some of her power budget to other abilities.
Speaking of her teleporter, it’s probably one of the more interesting changes she has received. With her teleporter being a basic ability now, it has changed Symmetra’s playstyle. The range is much shorter but the play making capabilities are endless. You can use it to help teammates escape, teleport D.va bombs into the enemy team or even help your Bastion reach a tactical position that he couldn’t reach before. Her ultimate also looks fantastic. An enormous wall with 5000 health to protect your team. Definitely a new original ability and one that looks like it could change fights by itself. Expect a whole bunch of crazy Symmetra plays to show up on Reddit soon!
The Horizon Lunar Colony is also getting changed. Blizzard stated that they had always wanted to make some changes to the map and now they finally do. With the changes that are happening both point A and B are changed a bit to make them more fun and engaging for the attackers as well as defenders. For point A Blizzard is giving the defenders some more opportunities to spot the enemy and set up different defense positions, rather that just sitting on the point waiting for the enemy to arrive. For point B Blizzard felt that the defenders could too easily retreat back to their base and get their health back. Making it feel like the attackers were endlessly shooting enemies while dealing no damage, so the layout has been changed somewhat to avoid this problem.
The last big thing this patch is the introduction of a ‘looking for group’ feature. This function let’s you browse or create a group that is looking for people that share a common goal. These goals could be climbing the ladder, playing for fun or it could even be a group just looking for new friends. This is not a matchmaking function, finding a group doesn’t automatically put in game, rather once a group is complete or they have waited long enough the entire group will queue up to play.
This new function is definitely a quality of life change for players who don’t have any friends to play the game with or don’t know any players of their skill level. However, if you have proven to be a toxic player this group function will be disabled for you. Only sportsmanlike and friendly players will be allowed to look for groups of new friends.
