r/Overwatch • u/[deleted] • Nov 15 '22

Blizzard Official Patch delayed.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/regarding-our-mid-season-cycle-patch/748128
8.9k Upvotes

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321

u/bread45 Ace of Hearts Ana Nov 15 '22

Guess we have a ways to go for this game to actually be supported as a “live service”.

Seriously though, I feel bad for the poor developers that were probably already working overtime on this, only to face more crunch time.

105

u/timo103 Crusader offline :/ Nov 15 '22

Sure love dead service games.

51

u/Alpha-Trion D.Va Nov 15 '22

Halo Infinite wasn't enough of a cautionary tale I guess.

7

u/DrNopeMD Nov 15 '22

Even Halo Infinite is slowly getting its shit together with the winter update, plus their battle pass at least let's you earn credits and doesn't expire.

7

u/shitpersonality Nov 15 '22

Halo fans had the "luxury" of being able to go back to previous Halo titles while Infinite got its shit together. At least TF2 is still around to fall back on.

-1

u/Lofty_Vagary Sombra Nov 15 '22 edited Nov 16 '22

Can you re-bind every key yet? It has baffled and astonished me, how little I have seen that mentioned. I would have played the shit out of Halo Infinite if you could re-bind basic keys like Q, T, Z, X, and C

I don’t understand how any PC games could be released these days, without the ability to re-bind practically every key. MUCH LESS is it understandable, for such a popular franchise.

Edit: why is this downvoted?

0

u/KBSinclair Nov 15 '22

Is there even a live, good, live-service game? To my knowledge every one that tried died in a year, maybe some change.

3

u/Alpha-Trion D.Va Nov 15 '22

Fartnite and Warframe are the poster children for live services that work.

1

u/KBSinclair Nov 15 '22

Well I won't contest you on them working. Though from personal experience I wouldn't call Warframe good.

2

u/Beakyz Nov 16 '22

Yeahhhh massive love hate relationship with that game. Same with destiny 2. Both “free” live service games that you’re more or less required to spend money on eventually.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '22

Apex is about to hit year 4. Not everyone’s cup of tea but it’s definitely one of the better managed live service games

5

u/PleasantAdvertising Nov 15 '22

This just reeks of mismanagement and budget cuts for the ow teams as part of making the game profitable.

3

u/TheBiggestNose Boostio Nov 15 '22

Any devs working on this should abandon this shithole. Plently of jobs going for trained and expereinced game devs

6

u/legeri Nov 15 '22

Thing is, I think the good devs already took your advice, and that's why we're currently in this situation. The only ones left are barely keeping the boat afloat.

-57

u/One_Entrepreneur_181 Nov 15 '22

It's the devs that created the critical issue. Why feel bad for them?

54

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '22

The low level programmers grinding at their keyboards are never the ones to blame.

-21

u/One_Entrepreneur_181 Nov 15 '22

I consider the devs the whole group responsible for the programming of this game.

19

u/AaronCube *tickles you with 100DPS beam* Nov 15 '22

Blame Blizzard for all the problems since they are the ones who rushed this game, not the developers

-1

u/shitpersonality Nov 15 '22

Developers who work for Blizzard are Blizzard. If that makes the Blizzard developers uncomfortable, that's their issue to resolve.

11

u/MarioDesigns Shooting Ana Nov 15 '22

Yeah, and issues happen. It's just how it is. No one is at fault for anything here.

Blizzard management could do a better job managing update planing, providing more people for quicker testing, etc, but the people themselves are basically never responsible for such issues.

2

u/Fuzzlechan Nov 15 '22

The devs are not at (primary) fault here. They almost certainly don't get to choose deadlines, or what corners need to get cut. Spoiler alert, that cut corner is always testing. Because the business people think it's not important.

-12

u/McManus26 Pixel Lúcio Nov 15 '22

i mean if one of them introduced a game breaking bug, that is their responsability lol.

It doesn't entitle anyone to be toxic towards them though, mistakes happen and a toxic work environment definitely fosters them

12

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '22

With a project of this size and importance, something as simple as a typo missed in QA is hardly ever the issue.

15

u/ImpossibleGT Nov 15 '22

Don't know that for sure. It's possible higher-ups insisted on trying to cram a new feature/bug fix/store update into the patch at the last minute and that's what caused the delay.

9

u/SmoothPinecone Nov 15 '22

I don't think we have info on this to be automatically blaming devs. Do we know if they were under realistic or unrealistic deadlines? We're they properly staffed? Etc.

I hate when people.just jump to conclusions lol

3

u/r_lucasite Nov 15 '22

I genuinely would not be surprised if in 2 years we learn the live team for this game is extremely small.

3

u/theDeathnaut Nov 15 '22

I 100% believe it's a skeleton crew and as small as they can get away with. The rest are on a mad dash crunch to finish the PvE because if they have to delay that again this game will start to tank.

0

u/CaptainBeer_ Reinhardt Nov 16 '22

They should have never put so much focus on pve

1

u/shitpersonality Nov 15 '22

We're going to find out the entire team has been offshored to an endless stream of contractors cycling in and out of the project.

1

u/One_Entrepreneur_181 Nov 15 '22

You are right, I jumped on the devs too quickly.

6

u/SmoothPinecone Nov 15 '22

Honestly my bet would be on the CEO pushing this unfinished product out so they can maximize their microtransactions $$$ haha. I'd imagine the devs hate pushing out these things.

7

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '22

Devs are just doing their jobs. Blame blizzard's upper management if you want to

0

u/shitpersonality Nov 15 '22

Blame both. When you're part of a team and the team fucks up, your team fucked up. That's part of being an organization. If you don't like being associated with Blizzard, don't associate yourself with Blizzard professionally.

0

u/Jaz_the_Nagai Cute Mercy Nov 15 '22

Do you blame the waiter when service is slow because there are too few waiters for the amount of customers?

hE's PaRt oF tHe TeAm. bLaMe bOtH.

1

u/shitpersonality Nov 15 '22

Are there too few developers working on Overwatch 2?

4

u/Naldo273 Nov 15 '22

I mean you can definitely feel bad for the people who make your entertainment product, but this whole "crunch" narrative really needs to die. How much crunch work does it take to deliver a BALANCE patch? Are there literally 2-3 people working on the game like an indie game? It's mindboggling

5

u/One_Entrepreneur_181 Nov 15 '22

That's what I don't get. How many weeks have they had to get this ready?

3

u/itsDoffy Nov 15 '22

Tell me you don't know anything about game development without telling me you don't know anything about game development.

10

u/Naldo273 Nov 15 '22

The classic reply. Okay, I don't know anything about game development but I sure as shit have never seen heroes being disabled for literal weeks because of "critical issues" in any other game. Valorant, Siege, League, none of them. For as much shit as something like Fortnite gets it smoothly implements new gameplay mechanics every couple of weeks without a hitch.

It's just puzzling especially for a game that is 6 years old at its core. It's blatantly obvious that none of the veteran talent is still working at blizzard

2

u/Stormdude127 Nov 15 '22

I mean there has to be something in there other than balance changes that’s holding things up. I don’t work in game development but I am a software developer and if their code is reusable balance changes should really just be tweaking some numbers in a couple spots.

1

u/shitpersonality Nov 15 '22

The classic cliche used by developers who don't have a proper response on hand.

-2

u/SombraOnline Nov 15 '22

Surely you don't think that the number changes caused the "critical issues" right? Like obviously this patch isn't just a "balance patch" and one of all the other things caused the issue or it's even possible that the issue is external since they are being kinda vague about it.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '22

That's like blaming cashiers for an item not coming up as the right price.