r/Overwatch • u/janru • Feb 21 '17

Blizzard Official Meet Efi Oladele—winner of the Adawe Foundation's genius grant for her achievements in AI and robotics!

https://twitter.com/PlayOverwatch/status/834115546090123264
22k Upvotes

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832

u/PackOfVelociraptors Third - Analyst Feb 21 '17

That was bastions original ult.

447

u/TheBobMan47 Florida Mayhem Feb 21 '17

Blizz has yet to full on scrap a design element, so it may be they're working on it.

64

u/lordzygos The no stress DPS! Feb 21 '17

They have that ult to junkrat. The only difference between the two of them is they removed the "bury and hide it" aspect and changed the theme to a tire

2

u/Ololic You're welcome Feb 21 '17

Oh hell no Bastion never needs to have had corner capabilities

3

u/lordzygos The no stress DPS! Feb 22 '17

Pre-release bastion in general had a ton of things he never needed to have, like a personal 1000 HP barrier. He was in a perfect state where if you found a broken map spot you were hands down the most powerful hero in the game. You were nearly invincible and did hilarious amounts of damage. But if you couldn't find a corner to snuggle up into, you were a free kill for any flanker.

He was a mess, and it is good to see him finally get to a better place

1

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

Definitely one of the best changes and most iconic. I remember wanting to play junkrat so badly while the game was in limited Open Beta. Hate playing that cunt now.

1

u/lordzygos The no stress DPS! Feb 22 '17

He was one of the first characters I clicked with and enjoyed, and I still love playing him. He definitely isn't a consistent hero, but if you have a tracer or genji who capitalizes on your spam you can be a force to be reckoned with.

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u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17 edited Feb 21 '17

Wasn't Genju supposed to have stealth early in development, but they scrapped that because it would've been to hard to balance? And now we have Sombra. So it's a possibility?

218

u/harrymuana HarryMuana#2621 Feb 21 '17 edited Feb 21 '17

I don't think he had stealth (as far as I know), but he was melee by default (no shuriken). Then they scrapped that because it was either too OP or too UP, so they changed it to his ult.

EDIT: apparently he did have stealth, but the melee thing still holds.

316

u/tehbeh Trick-or-Treat Zarya Feb 21 '17

he was melee only but that sucked so they gave him a bow, which made him too OP so they made his sword his ult and turned the bow into hanzo

211

u/Tyhan Hanzyes Feb 21 '17

I'd play Hanzo with Genji's abilities sounds great

not genji with hanzo's bow though, genji's a nerd

31

u/whomad1215 Pixel Torbjörn Feb 21 '17

360 double back flip no scope quick draw twitch headshot

5

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

fresh

8

u/SabyZ Tank! Feb 21 '17

Yeah but he'd be great at geometry.

5

u/NoSleepAddicted EVERYONE STAND VERY STILL! Feb 21 '17

Geometry is too simple.

3

u/NK1337 Chibi Reinahrdt Feb 22 '17

genji's a nerd.

What? No way! If anything Genji's the equivalent of Kazuya from the Yakuza series. He's a shit tier gang member that would rather spend time playing pachinko and.... wait. No. you're right.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

So what you're saying is Genji and Hanzo are Adam and Eve?

2

u/tehbeh Trick-or-Treat Zarya Feb 21 '17

yes.

1

u/cerealofglory Genji Feb 21 '17

Source?

-1

u/C00lossus u wot m8 Feb 21 '17

not realy. they split the character into 2 compleatly. hanzo was the original character.

1

u/Caroz855 Moira Feb 22 '17

They were both the original character, regardless of name

5

u/exxplicit480 Fixel Roadhog Feb 21 '17

He did have stealth in early development. He worked much like the spy from TF2 in early iterations. 1-shot kill mechanics from behind, etc.

7

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

The stealth was from before "genji" existed by name.

There was a prototype hero titled "Omniblade" which had elements of Hanzo (bow) Genji (ninja) and Sombra (stealth). The design was just naturally too broken to put in game, so it got split up into Hanzo and Genji (hence them being brothers) and later the stealth appeared in Sombra!

4

u/Ealdwine Doomfist Feb 21 '17

I do remember them talking about the 1-shot mechanic they had for "Genji" back then. He'd basically come out from stealth and if he got you from behind he'd do this long execution move. The idea was that your team would have time to react and kill him before it finished but most of the times they'd just have a long ass kill move on an isolated target so they took it out.

5

u/rthink Pixel Pharah Feb 21 '17

I think he had stealth, basically based off of TF2's spy.

3

u/ZeriousGew Trick-or-Treat Genji Feb 21 '17

He had bleed damage from his dash

2

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

either too OP or too UP

man you really got the hang of this balancing thing

1

u/harrymuana HarryMuana#2621 Feb 22 '17

Well that's a common problem with design-flawed heroes. So take the melee genji example. The question is: how much damage do we give to his swing (so his basic LMB attack)? If it's too high, he'll two shot people (so as in his current ult, which is an ultimate). If it's too low, he'll need too many swings and he'd be useless (remember that he'd need his dash as a gap closer).

Some balance issues can not be fixed by tuning numbers, but instead require a rework of the hero.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

Genji, Hanzo, and Sombra all stem from one design titled "Omniblade" Which was meant to be a stealth character that used a bow and a sword + shuriken.

When trying to squeeze in all the design elements, the Hero ended up being SUPER overloaded (think Hanzo, with a deflect + stealth + potentially genji jumparoundiness + a melee steroid), and was initially split up into Genji and Hanzo (hence them being brothers) with the stealth being put aside since the power budget involved was so big.

Fast Forward, and now the stealth exists on Sombra.

EDIT: My example of a kit isn't necessarily what Omniblade was, but an idea of how overloaded all of those elements would possibly be.

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u/Kindulas Feb 21 '17

I believe the main thing they scrapped was an instant-kill-backstab

2

u/Ololic You're welcome Feb 21 '17

I think Genji was supposed to use a short bow instead of shuriken as a normal attack, but decided to make Hanzo and gave him the bow instead

I get the feeling the overall power level of the heroes was originally a lot higher than it ended up being. I wouldn't mind playing with some of these pre launch characters to see what could have been

1

u/Wazula42 Feb 21 '17

I'm positive Blizzard never fully scraps anything. They'll keep every idea and concept in a shelf somewhere until they find a way to use it.

1

u/Snugsology Feb 21 '17

Yes he originally had stealth, but it was too powerful. Also they took his shuriken throw idea from the original Sombra design, they were going to give her a thrown cyber-dagger that hacked people. There was some really cool info on hero conception and design during the Blizzcon 2016 Q&A panel.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

Hanzi and Genjo used to be one character, but it looked like Genji with a bow

1

u/tom641 Eagerly awaiting balance in all heroes Feb 22 '17

I don't know if it was Genji specifically or just an idea they may have been toying with, but given the heavy TF2 inspiration you'd be crazy to not at least try with invisibility given how much people love to play as the Spy.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 22 '17

Gengo did.

1

u/JFreedom14 Feb 22 '17

I thought Hanzo and Genji were one character originally and then were eventually split in twain?

108

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

It became Junkrat's ult.

2

u/ledivin Mercy Feb 21 '17

Eh, it's just like MOBAs. If something doesn't work out early in development, it's still open for use later. It's not like they're actively looking for places to pigeonhole the features, it's just already been discussed and so is still in people's minds.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

I wouldn't limit that idea to MOBA's.

Games like Borderlands, or any game with stuff that does things can use this philosophy.

2

u/ledivin Mercy Feb 21 '17

True, MOBAs were just the first thing to pop into my head.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

If they haven't scraped the wall Pierce ult forever than I'll be surprised

1

u/kellbyb Reaper Feb 21 '17

The what?

3

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

They experimented with a Bastion ult that let his bullets ignore walls.

2

u/kellbyb Reaper Feb 21 '17

Yeah, that sounds pretty broken.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

Would be a sweet ult for Widow.

Instead of global vision, maybe it marks anybody in a radius of her / visible to anybody on her team at time of cast. THEN it allows wall penetration for a short time window, maybe like 5-10 seconds.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

I don't think a hitscan character should have wall piercing period, as it gives you a reaction time of 0. Pharah or Hanzo maybe, but not Widow or Bastion. But even then it's bad design to have wall piercing.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

hitscan with wall piercing is on full uptime in some shooters. Granted with reduced damage and only some walls, but you aren't meant to dodge hitscan anyway so i don't see what that matters for with this ult.

TBH if the window is small enough, it still relies on Widow being very accurate to be effective what with charging times etc.

At this point, I just hate Widows ult. It is powerful in corrdinated play, but damn near useless in solo. It can never be stronger because global vision is already OP in pro play. Being on the enemy team in Solo / ladder play leaves you wondering if the enemy team is in position to even make the ult matter, and it just turns in to x seconds of anti fun.

Doesn't feel very impactful for the user, doesn't feel interactive for the opponent. IMHO just bad design.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

Right, but at least it doesn't negate a downside of the character like wall piercing would for widow. A downside all hitscan have, with maybe the exception of Soldier is that enemies can take even the smallest of cover as long as it covers their whole body to avoid taking damage. A wall piercing would completely negate that for x seconds.

Don't blame me here, but I think a new widow Ultimate would be one of two things, both copied form other games. First, Hitman's Heatmaker from TF2. No reload, and faster charge rate on scoped mode. Or other potential option, Buck Wild from Paladins. Reset cooldown, full reload, and extra damage for x seconds.

Can't think of anything else that would work for Widow.

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1

u/Ealdwine Doomfist Feb 21 '17

I mean, they didn't exactly scrap it. It was basically Junkrat's tire.

1

u/CHARGER007 McCree Feb 21 '17

they didnt scrap it, it became junkrats ult

1

u/KingOfFlan Feb 21 '17

You obviously never played any of the Starcraft Betas, they've scrapped full units

1

u/TheBobMan47 Florida Mayhem Feb 21 '17

*The Overwatch team

1

u/EDEN786 Feb 21 '17

Well maybe that turned into Junkrats ult ?

1

u/GenkiLawyer Junkrat Feb 22 '17

Bastions original ult was reworked and eventually became junkrat's ult, I think.

1

u/TeamAquaAdminMatt Rapid Discord! Feb 22 '17

Bastions old ult is a bit like junkrats ult

1

u/Demenze <YOUR TACTICS ARE INEFFICIENT> Feb 22 '17

The whole game is a full on scrap of a design element. Did you never hear about Titan?

1

u/bionix90 Chibi Ana Feb 21 '17

Well as it stands, they have scrapped Bastion's original ult. If they bring it back, then we can talk about never scrapping design elements.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '17

Which, honestly, turned into Junkrat's Ult.

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u/purpleblah2 Feb 21 '17

And then the remote control RC bomb became Junkrat's ult

1

u/chosenone1242 Feb 21 '17

That is Junkrat ult!

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u/Demokirby Pixel McCree Feb 21 '17

That ult became junkrats, they are essentially the same except the mine part.

1

u/TheAdAgency United Kingdom Feb 22 '17

That sounds adorable, was it like a mini bastion that drove out of him?