The latest patch, Blizzard rolled out yesterday, brought moderate buffs to some of the Overwatch characters, including the long-anticipated Doomfist. The changes were well-accepted by players, but the tweak to the respawn timing has created a lot of confusion. That is why Blizzard representatives took it to the battle.net forums to address players’ concerns.
The issue stemmed from the vague description available in the patch notes. Blizzard released the following announcement alongside the patch release: “Adjusted the respawn timing to limit defensive stalling strategies when the offensive team has a clear advantage and plays aggressively.”
Consequently, Overwatch players created a thread in the battle.net forums in an attempt to figure out what exactly this change means and asked Blizzard representatives to shed light on the matter.
Scott Mercer, the principal designer of Blizzard, explained that currently, the system increases the defender respawn time for 30 seconds on instances where the attackers are more that the defenders on an objective. The respawn time increases to maximum when attackers held the advantage for 90 seconds.
However, the patch starts increasing defender spawn time after 15 seconds and the maximum increase of the spawn time is reached after 75 seconds.
Mercer went on to say that the “timer doesn’t immediately reset to 0 if the attackers temporarily leave the objective area” or do not have a “numerical advantage on the objective”. Mercer clarified that “the ‘attacker advantage timer’ instead reverses and counts back down to 0” and drew an example that further explains the respawn increase affair.
The respawn timers were just a small portion of the changes the patch brought. The other noteworthy changes include a buff to Zarya’s ultimate, an increase to Reinhardt’s hammer swing speed and an improvement to McCree’s Flashbang.
As for the upcoming changes, the next playable character, expected to get a buff is Junkrat. As reported by RealGear, the development team is currently considering improving his RIP-Tire ultimate and giving him two charges of his Concussion Mine.
