With a year of Overwatch behind us already, it's no surprise we're already in the Patch 2.x series. While they're not all too frequent for the most part, with 24 heroes on the roster, it can be difficult to keep up with every slight change gracing Blizzard's multiplayer shooter.
From new characters to minor tweaks to kills, full overhauls and huge nerfs, it's about time we start keeping players in the loop a little more than we already have. Remember the Sombra ARG? We're not doing that. Instead of lengthy paragraphs about each change without really dishing out the details of each, we're looking to our other game patch pages and offering the same deal. Easy to read bullet-points so you can find what matters at a glace and get back into the game.
Overwatch Patch Notes - Patch 1.13
Now this one's a big deal. Doomfist finally arrives while a bunch of heroes receive some pretty interesting changes. One of the cool ideas if that if two characters with a 'charge' style attack use it on each other, they'll both get knocked down but take no damage. It's like a disastrous headbutt. Oh, and Loot Boxes are changing.
Changelog:
- Hero Change
- Doomfist
- Rocket Punch
- Total distance traveled reduced by about 20%
- Seismic Slam
- Added a new UI indicator to show how much damage it will deal, and how much it dealt. Previously this was only indicated by the default crosshair filling in, but this is only visible when using the default crosshair. The new indicator should always be visible, regardless of any crosshair changes. Also, targeting this ability while in the air is now restricted to locations lower than your current height.
- McCree
- Flashbang
- Now slows targets significantly when they are stunned. This makes them less likely to slide away around a corner or something similar once they are stunned.
- Reaper
- Shadow Step
- VO and SFX distance dramatically reduced.
- Reinhardt
- Hammer
- Swing speed increased by ~10%. On top of the swing speed increase, we've gone through and tweaked many timings and other things about the Hammer to make it more responsive. Overall it should feel a lot better to swing and make contact with enemies.
- Charge
- Impacting another charging hero (Doomfist or Reinhardt) no longer deals damage to both characters, but still causes a knockdown on both.
- Various bug fixes were also implemented to grapple with the community's recent issues. Kaplan made a post detailing them.
- Zarya
- Graviton Surge
- Now disables all movement abilities of affected targets. This is similar to how Junkrat's trap affects abilities.
- Loot Boxes
- Loot Boxes will now give out drastically fewer duplicates
- all players who log in to the PTR this patch cycle will receive five PTR Loot Boxes
- Highlights
- The game will continue to automatically generate highlights for you based on your recent gameplay. These auto-generated highlights—now categorised as “Today’s Top 5”—will be surfaced on a daily basis and persist for a full 24 hours (or until the game client is patched, whichever happens first).
- Players can now generate their own highlights! The ability to capture 12 seconds of your own gameplay has been added to the game, and can be bound to a single button of your choice (or a button per highlight slot) in the Options menu under “Request Highlight.” These player-generated highlights will be saved under a new section called “Recently Captured” and will persist until the game client is patched. Players can have up to 36 recently-captured highlights stored at one time.
- With the above, players can now record any of their “Top 5” or “Recently Captured” highlights, exporting them as a video file to their gaming platform’s designated media library (on console) or directory (on PC). On PC, players will also have the option to select the quality at which these highlights are exported, supporting up to 4K at 60fps for Windows 8 or higher operating systems, and up to 1080p on Windows 7.
- General
- Custom Games and Game Browser
- Clarified the text on the “Flag Carrier” options under the Capture the Flag settings for Custom Games
- Removed the “Projectile Speed” and “Projectile Gravity” options for heroes who do not have projectile weapons
- User Interface
- Added ability to create customised reticles
- Reticle options can be found under the “Controls” tab in the “Options” menu (click the “Advanced” expander under the “Reticle” heading)
- Bug fixes
- Fixed a bug that could cause the user interface to incorrectly indicate that an enemy player has been hit when colliding with them
- Fixed a bug that could allow projectiles that would normally pierce shields (i.e. Reinhardt’s Fire Strike) to pass through other surfaces
- Heroes
- Fixed a bug that could cause eliminations from Junkrat’s Total Mayhem to be mislabeled in the kill feed
- Fixed a bug that allowed Roadhog’s Chain Hook to latch on to Orisa’s Supercharger
- Fixed a bug that allowed Sombra to take damage after activating her Translocator
- Maps
- Fixed a bug that caused AI-controlled players to perpetually move toward the objective on the Gardens point in Oasis
- Fixed a bug that prevented Training Bots from facing the right direction and returning to their original location after being moved by player interactions on the Practice Range
- Fixed a bug that could cause D.Va to fall through the floor while boosting into the ground in a specific area on Volskaya Industries
- User Interface
- Fixed a bug that caused the Heroes of the Storm promotional portraits to appear locked, even after being unlocked
- Fixed a bug that could cause an error message in chat if you attempted to spectate a new player while already spectating another player
- Fixed a bug that could cause the chat window to be placed too high on the main menu, blocking menu options
- Fixed a bug that prevented text from wrapping in the Report Player text box
Overwatch Patch Notes - Patch 1.12
We don't know if Patch 1.12 brought any actual changes, but there's one thing it did for certain - extend the massively popular Uprising PvE event. We'll update this if Blizzard bother to put out official patch notes once the event ends on its own terms.
Changelog:
- The Uprising event has been reinstated following the premature removal of the event
- The event will now officially end at 1am GMT (May 3) or 5pm PDT (May 2)
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Overwatch Patch Notes - Patch 2.0.7
Arguably the first big update of the year, we're away from inter-dimensional hook changes and the increased burn of Symmetra's turrets and right into a brand-new character. It might not be Doomfist, but Orisa is here to stay. There's a few other character changes too, of course. Don't feel left out.
Changelog:
- New Characters
- Tank Type: Orisa - Read more about her here
- General Updates
- On Route 66, the attacking team is now given 60 additional seconds after pushing the payload to the first checkpoint
- When setting up a Custom Game, players can now disable or modify abilities activated with the secondary fire button
- Hero Updates
- Ana
- Biotic Rifle
- Damage decreased from 80 to 60
- Junkrat
- Junkrat’s explosions no longer hurt him
- Mercy
- The amount of increased damage that’s done when boosting another player is now tracked under the match statistics and on the Career Profile page
- Sombra
- Sombra’s teammates can now see hacked healthpacks through walls
- Sound effects and VO distance has been reduced to 15 meters when Sombra enters or exits Stealth
- Translocator cooldown reduced from 6 seconds to 4 seconds
- Winston
- Barrier Projector ability cooldown now starts when the barrier is placed, instead of when it ends
- Zarya
- Particle Barrier no longer protects Zarya from knockback
- Projected Barrier no longer protects allies from knockback
- Zenyatta
- Orb of Destruction
- Alternate fire cooldown has been reduced from 1 seconds to 0.6 seconds
- Weapon spread has been removed
- Bug Fixes
- General
- When Teleporters, Shield Generators, and other player-owned objects are destroyed, the kill feed now properly displays the owner’s name
- Fixed a bug preventing Bastion and Torbjörn bots from taking a defensive position when turret abilities were disabled in Custom Games
- Fixed a visual bug that prevented your current medals from being displayed in the setup phase between rounds
- Fixed a bug causing players to respawn in the enemy spawn room after being pinned against a car by an enemy Reinhardt on Oasis
- A scoring requirement clarification has been added to the Capture the Flag settings, stating that each team’s flag will need to be secured before they can score
- Fixed a bug that could cause certain settings to be displayed on the Custom Game’s information screen even when they weren’t being used
- Fixed an issue preventing values from the “Ultimate Generation” setting from being correctly displayed
- Heroes and maps are now sorted alphabetically under the “Find Game” filters in the Game Browser
- Fixed a bug preventing Bastion’s Self-Repair ability from being disabled in the Custom Game settings
- Heroes
- Fixed an issue preventing Bastion’s walking animation from being triggered while Self-Repair was in use
- McCree no longer receives credit toward his on-fire meter when his Flashbang is used against Mei’s Ice Wall
- Fixed a bug that kept a successful Roadhog hook from counting towards the “Match Players Hooked” statistic when the enemy player was killed on impact
- Fixed an issue causing Zenyatta’s feet to clip through his robe while his Sanzang skin was equipped
- Fixed a bug causing Reaper's shotguns and D.Va's mech to appear unusually large on the main menu
- Maps
- Training bots that are destroyed in the Practice Range are now displayed in the kill feed
- Fixed a bug allowing more than one player to enter the Practice Range
