Overwatch 2’s developers are confirming big changes to the Ultimates and other “snowball” mechanics

Mods to Ultimates 2 for Overwatch 2 and other “snowball mechanics” are in the works to prevent the amount of swirling matches that plague the game.

Since its release, Overwatch 2 has been criticized for having some major balancing issues with matchmaking between players of different skill levels who end up in the same game.

While the developers have made efforts to overhaul the matchmaker and create more competitive matches, they seem to have identified another big area that desperately needs some tweaks: the Snowball mechanics.

The developers believe that addressing these features can make the game a lot better, and they’ve been making that a lot clear lately blog post Discuss stomps in OW2 and how they can be fixed.

Overwatch 2 developers want to stop hurdles by tweaking ‘snowball’ mechanics

According to game director Aaron Keeler, the team has been collecting data on rotating matches and has discovered that they can occur regardless of match quality — and even in games where the skill difference is less than one division.

“We think there are mechanisms in Overwatch that contribute to matches looking this way. For example, the way supercharges are generated in the game is the snowball mechanic, and that momentum can be very difficult to stop.”

The lead developer used the control map genre as an example, noting how players would sometimes be annihilated in the first round only to come back again in the second to win the entire match.

“Resetting between rounds overrules many of these mechanics and puts each team on an even playing field for the next round. We’re constantly working on our matchmaker, but the biggest gains to perceived competitiveness in Overwatch lie in looking at our core mechanics and playstyles and making adjustments here.”

Keller added that there is “more to come” on the subject, indicating that changes are in the works. One possibility would be to reset the final charge in game modes such as Payload once a checkpoint is reached.

In any case, we hope to learn more about the planned changes in time for a mid-season patch that will also include a special 5v5 team queue.