Overwatch Implementing “Experimental Card”, Promises To Bring Aggressive Changes

Blizzard is bringing something called an “Experimental Card” to the Overwatch menu. This decision was made because the developers have faced criticism in the past for responding too slowly to complaints and balancing issues. Currently, the game uses a PTR for testing, but it’s not that effective as developers want it to be. The Experimental Card is supposed to be more aggressive and frequent.

"This Experimental Card will be some number of changes—they might be related to hero balance, they might be related to other things, we might be testing changes to the way one of our game modes works, like the Control game mode and how it works in Competitive.” Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan said in a developer update video. “It doesn't have to be balance related—but the Experimental Card will come up every now and then when we want to test something. And it will give all players of Overwatch, not just players who want to go to the PTR but all players including console players, will be able to use the Experimental Card to test changes out."

The Experimental Card will be used for gameplay changes and to monitor the player’s reaction to it, whereas PTR is used mainly for bugs and stability reasons. The very first Experimental Card will drop in a few weeks and will be part of the main build, which means your progress in it will count. The new system can be utilized by all players, whereas, PTR is only available for PC players.

"We're going to try some pretty aggressive balance changes, we're going to balance more aggressively, target the meta, and moving you off of the meta as frequently as possible," Kaplan said.

So what do you think? Are you excited about The Experimental Card system? Do you think something different? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.