Players can now right click on a friend's name to join their Custom Game
Players can now alter the following rules for a Custom Game:
Map Options
Map Rotation (Random, List Order, and Single Map)
Return to Lobby (Never, After a Game, After a Mirror Match)
Players can now customize which maps are enabled for their Custom Game
Hero Options
Hero Selection Limit (None, 1 Per Team, 2 Per Team, 1 Per Game, 2 Per Game)
Role Selection Limit (None, 2 of Each Role Per Team)
Allow Hero Switching (On, Off)
Respawn as Random Hero (On, Off)
Player can now customize which heroes are enabled for their Custom Game
Gameplay Options
Players can now set their Custom Game as a skirmish
Players can now set modifiers for the following stats: Health, Damage, Healing, Ultimate Charge Rate, Respawn Time, Ability Cooldown
Players can now enable or disable the following options: Skins, Health Bars, Kill Cam, Kill Feed, Headshots Only
Team Options
Team Balancing (Automatic, Off)
When Balancing Occurs (After a Game, After a Mirror Match)
Custom Game AI options have been improved:
Players can now add friendly AI to their team
Players can now select which AI they want to play against
Players can now set the difficulty of each AI in the game
AI can now play in all game modes
Several small quality-of-life changes have been made to Custom Game spectating
Scrolling the Mouse Wheel will now zoom you in and out of third-person view
When spectating in third-person, right-clicking will now detach the camera at its current location
The third-person camera will now orient based on where the spectated player is aiming
Miscellaneous[]
A new work-in-progress Training mode has been added: the Practice Range
A new work-in-progress profile system has been added (under "Career Profile")
Initial support for AMD Crossfire and NVIDIA SLI has been added
Jeff Kaplan's beard progression has been reset
Hero Balance Changes[]
General[]
All healing effects now work on shields
Quick Melee now pauses weapon recovery time while active
Ammo will now reload in the middle of a weapon's reload animation, instead of at the end of it
Several adjustments have been made to in-combat visual effects:
Enemy team ability colors should now be more clear
Muzzle flash has been re-tuned for several weapons
Several adjustments have been made to in-combat audio:
It should now be more obvious when you are being healed by indirect healing sources like the payload or Lúcio's Crossfade ability
It should now be more obvious when you are attacking invulnerable players
Explosions at a distance should now be more audible
Ultimate Charge[]
Players no longer gain ultimate charge from taking damage
Ultimate charge will now generate slowly over time for all Heroes
To accommodate for these changes, many heroes' Ultimate cost has been rebalanced
Developer comments: Allowing heroes to generate ultimate charge when taking damage created several balance issues. For example, it was often a bad idea to attack an enemy hero if they were being healed, since that would charge up the enemy's Ultimate and their healer's Ultimate much more quickly. To help address these issues, we've removed the ability for damage taken to generate ultimate charge and made it so that all heroes will now generate ultimate charge at a slow and constant rate.
Now heals 25% of total health per second, instead of a flat value
Developer comments: While we love the way that Bastion can turn the tide of battle, the hero felt too powerful against less experienced players and too weak against more experienced players. The goal of these changes is to make Bastion more viable at all skill levels, as well as provide more flexibility in how the hero can be played and supported by a team.
Developer comments: Previously, D.Va could become a problem when there were multiple people playing her in a game, especially when they were crowded around a small capture point or escort objective. Between the size of her Defense Matrix and the fact that her destroyed mech could be used to block line of sight, she was often simply too difficult to kill. These changes are designed to reduce her overall defensive footprint and give players more ways to counter her.
Activation time decreased from 1.5 seconds to 1 second
Range decreased from 40 meters to 15 meters
No longer locks aim during activation
Developer comments: Mercy is a very strong support hero with a very strong Ultimate, so it's no surprise that many teams consider her mandatory. We don't want any hero—or any hero ability—to feel like an "auto pick." Our goal with these changes is to tone down Resurrect by allowing opponents to counter it, but still make sure it can feel game-changing.
Will no longer refuel while Pharah is sliding on an un-walkable surface
Developer comments: Players discovered a way to make Pharah hover indefinitely across some surfaces. While we initially allowed this neat trick to persist, it ultimately proved detrimental to map balance, so it needed to go.
If Reinhardt activates Earthshatter while trapped inside a Graviton Surge, he will now be dropped to the ground and the ability will activate at that point (rather than it activating in mid-air)
Developer comments: Ideally, players should be using Earthshatter as a setup move for their team. However, this ability was doing so much damage that Reinhardt could use it as a setup and finishing move, eliminating multiple enemy heroes without much assistance. These changes are intended to bring Earthshatter more in line with other heroes' Ultimates, while still allowing Reinhardt to be the big playmaker he has been.
Stun duration after being hooked has been slightly increased
Developer comments: It's always been intended that, after successfully hooking a target, Roadhog would have a chance to act before his target recovered; however, there were some situations in which this wasn't happening, particularly at higher latencies. We've slightly increased the stun duration following Chain Hook to compensate.
Spread recovery now begins instantly, instead of after a delay
Spread now has a curve, which makes it more accurate at the start but then quickly becomes less accurate
Developer comments: These changes are aimed at making Soldier:76's weapon feel better when firing, as well as provide more experienced players the opportunity to gain accuracy at longer ranges (via burst-firing). To ensure that Soldier: 76 doesn't become too powerful as sniper, however, we also added some long-range damage falloff to compensate.
Symmetra no longer gains ultimate charge while her Teleporter is active
Developer comments: These changes have two primary goals. First, we want it to be easier for Symmetra to get her first Teleporter up. Second, we want to eliminate those frustrating situations where Symmetra is able to immediately deploy another Teleporter as soon as it's found and destroyed by an enemy team.
Now automatically upgrades level 2 turrets to level 3 turrets while Molten Core is running (turrets will revert to level 2 once Molten Core ends)
Developer comments: Similar to Bastion, Torbjörn was a hero that often felt too powerful against less-experienced players, but underwhelming against more experienced players. In particular, we found that less-experienced players had a difficult time figuring out how to deal with Torbjörn's level 3 turret. On the flipside, more experienced players could easily prevent Torbjörn from setting up a level 3 turret or otherwise getting too established, which in turn made him feel helpless. To help solve these issues, we're making his Rivet Gun stronger; improving the damage output of his level 1 and level 2 turrets, but reducing their health; and linking his Level 3 turret to his Ultimate, Molten Core (thus limiting its duration).
User Interface[]
General
The game's Main, Social, and Options menus have been redesigned
Game Options
Gameplay
An "Always Skip Kill Cam" option has been added
A "Kill Feed Display" option has been added
Sound
Volume sliders have been added for Music, Sound Effects, and Voice Chat
In-Game UI
Scoreboard
Scoreboard statistics have been reworked for all heroes
Social Features
Commendations
New commendations have been added for several heroes
Players can no longer receive more than one commendation during end-of-round voting
Voice Chat
An on-screen notification will now appear when players are speaking in other channels
Bug fixes[]
General
Having a controller connected no longer prevents menu navigation
Made improvements to how the game handles window creation and transitions between Fullscreen and Windowed modes
